Teen Titans: Terror and Torment
by Universalperson
Summary: Prepare for the new trials and travails of the Teen Titans...with refrences and characters from the original comics. DISCONTINUED, SORRY
1. Blame

**Okay folks, here's the scoop. I've decided to expand this fic into a series...although the chapter after this won't have much to do with Geo-Force. Consider this my own Season of Teen Titans. It is set after the episode "Titans East" (which isn't out yet). I've also corrected a few typos in the fic.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. I also don't own some of the things you'd think I own…please see the bottom for more details.**

(Begin fic)

**

* * *

****When something wrong happens, who should be blamed?**

**Consider Raven.**

**Who should be blamed for her problems? The first answer would perhaps be "Trigon." But he was just the father. Arella could share equal blame. Or perhaps we can blame Arella's abusive parents, or the foul being that sired Trigon in the first place. **

**We can blame fate, life, even Raven herself, and we would still, in some way, be wrong.**

**Best then to blame no-one at all.**

**No-one at all…**

* * *

**Jump City, California.**

One of the few places where crazed magicians, 10-year old geniuses, and green pterodactyls were considered to be "normal."

The latter was diving to the ground, having just saved a family from a burning building.

Burning, however, is not the correct word. Incinerating seems more like it.

What caused the inferno? Best not to think about that. Best to save lives first and ask questions later.

As Beast Boy deposited the family, our other super-hero friends were busy saving the others.

Running out of the burning building was a half-metal man and a boy in costume, a.k.a. Robin and Cyborg. Holding as much people as they could carry, they put them on the ground a few feet before racing into the burning building again.

It was almost like the shuttle run…except lives were in the balance. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, neither of them had burn marks.

A similar event was going on in the higher parts of the building, where a redhead known as Starfire and a cloaked figure known as Raven were darting in windows, coming out with survivors, placing them safely on the ground, and going back in again. Raven used her shadow telekinesis, Starfire just grabbed them.

Basically, it was a typical textbook rescue mission for the Titans.

Then things took a little turn for the worse.

The green pterodactyl set down on the ground as the rescued victims jumped off him, none the worse for wear.

The shapeshifter, still in animal form looked up…and its eyes grew wide.

**"AHHHHHHHHH!"**

Someone was falling.

A little boy of about ten.

The smoke must have blinded him, must have made him mistake a window for a door.

_Waterfalls._

Beast Boy didn't think this.

His mind just focuses on that poor boy, a victim of fate.

_Falling._

He spread his wings, about to "leap" into the air, hoping to catch the boy before he fell…

_'Wait a minute…shouldn't he be falling faster?'_

Indeed, the kid's descent was slowing down, not stopping, but slowing. The kid was still scared, but when his impending doom suddenly slowed to a crawl, the kid felt better.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Beast Boy, _still_ a pterodactyl, saw the figure.

Yellow and red, it grabbed the boy while still in the air and brought him down.

All this happened in a matter of minutes…perhaps seconds. It is hard to say in these life or death situations.

Somewhere, the other four Titans were saying that all the people were saved, that there was no-one in danger.

But the green pterodactyl was off to find out who was that kid's savior.

_Yellow and red._

A crowd was gathered at a respectable distance from the savior and the saved. Beast Boy landed nearby and took human form.

The man, for that's what he seemed to be, was patting the boy on the head, telling him it would be okay.

Like a father.

_'No…like a brother.'_

"It's dangerous. You have to go, okay?"

The voice sounded American, but had a trace of a foreign accent somewhere. Later, Beast Boy would find out it was European.

As the boy scampered off, the rescuer rose and stared straight at the green changeling.

The man was a superhero, no doubts about it…he was older than Beast Boy, but still young, probably around sixteen or seventeen. He wore a tight yellow costume, with red around the midsection, gloves and boots also the same color. The gloves extended beyond the hand, and onto the wrist. His hair was short, but wavy, a lighter red than his costume, and covering his ears. He had a belt on, also yellow, but different enough from his costume to stand out. On his chest, a black circle, the letters GF inside it.

And the eyes…

He wore a white face mask, similar to Robin's, except the eyes were visible.

_Blue eyes…so familiar._

Beast Boy walked up to him, extending a hand.

"Hey, thanks for helping!"

The newcomer took it…Beast Boy was suddenly aware of his feet not touching the ground.

The "rescuer" swung him into a punch.

**WHAM!**

Beast Boy was sent flying into a wall.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

It was a textbook rescue operation. Why do these things always go wrong?

_There's no-one to blame but fate…_

The Titans had just finished saving all the people in the burning building. They saw the figure that saved the kid. They saw Beast Boy flying up to him.

They saw Beast Boy get slammed.

Starfire, being the semi-naïve alien she is, was the first to speak, flying in the air, hands glowing with energy, eyes glowing green.

"Who are you, and why did you hurt my friend?"

The assailant turned to her, and spoke.

"My name is Geo-Force, and I hurt your friend because he hurts others."

He spoke almost without emotion…_almost. _One could hear some of the sadness in voice…and the anger.

His eyes glowing yellow, he put out his hands, palms out, toward Starfire.

Immediately, she felt a weight on her shoulders. She struggled from a moment, then, was violently thrust to the ground, the assailant's hands, glowing yellow, following her as she fell.

Cyborg was next. He raced toward the attacker, sonic cannon at the ready.

Geo-Force turned, his eyes glowing yellow again as he put his hands out, glowing with yellow energy…

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Cyborg's human eye widened as the air in front of the attacker _shimmered._ Suddenly, he felt an intense wave of heat wash over him.

"Gahh…" Cyborg kneeled down as steam poured out of him. His sonic canon crackled with electricity as the heat disrupted its circuitry.

The metahuman looked at the smoking half-robot, making sure he was down.

From behind him, Raven fired a bolt of black energy…

And he rocketed up in the air. Turning around, he stared at the dark girl.

A nearby empty bus glowed with a black aura. Raven "picked" it up…

For Raven it was as if the bus suddenly grew heavier. She put her hands over her head at the sudden mental strain.

"Aghh…."

The assailant's arms were again glowing out in front of him, this time directed toward the bus. It was still covered in a black aura, but was slowly lowering to the ground.

Quick as a flash, he directed his hands to Raven.

SSSSSSSSS!

Before she could recover, the line of shimmering heat was on her.

"Ack!" Her cloaked smoked as she fell to the ground.

The attacker landed again, and looked straight at the last Titan standing.

Robin charged, staff swinging at the assailant.

It was stopped in mid-swing by the latter's arm.

His eyes, normal now, stared into Robin's mask.

Robin was a bit shocked. '_He should have at least got a sprain from that.'_

He swung his staff some more. The attacker blocked every blow.

Robin paused. "What do you have against us?"

The attacker's eyes lowered in rage. Instead of responding, he threw a punch.

WHAM! Robin was sent sprawling.

_'Feels like I was hit by a rock…'_

The assailant walked forward, hair blowing in the wind.

"What do I have against you?" he rhetorically asked, his voice full of quiet hatred. "What do you have against everyone?"

Robin's eyes widened.

The costumed warrior continued. "I know you're not really heroes. Oh sure, you _save lives_," he said those words with extra venom in his voice, "but you only do it to suit your goals. You say you help the people, but you only help yourselves."

The warrior walked forward until he was over Robin's fallen form, still looking up in shock.

"I know the truth about you, about your team. You are no better than the villains you claim to fight. You use others for you own ends…" and at this a tear fell from his eye, "and if they get wise you throw them away_…"_

His voice now could more accurately betray the sadness and anger that he felt.

"Do you understand the pain you cause to those people?" he asked, almost pleadingly. "Do you understand the pain you cause to those close to them?"

"Dude, I don't get you."

It was Beast Boy, suddenly walking up. "Hurting other people? That's really not our style."

The boy rounded on him. "Stop your lies, imp," his voice now full of only hate. "I know what you really are. I know what you really do. You lie, you hurt, you have no remorse. So drop the act already!"

"We have no act to 'drop'." It was Starfire, who flew in behind the boy, near Robin, who finished getting up. Her eyes seemed to show sadness. "We truly try to be good people. But if we have hurt you, in any way…then we are greatly sorry."

The warrior raised his head back and laughed. "Hurt me? Hurt me? What about the other people you hurt, the people you used? What about the lives crushed under your feet? Admit it. You know what I'm talking about."

"Star" Robin muttered. "He doesn't seem to be listening to reason…"

Suddenly Robin was knocked backward into a wall by what can only be called a rocket punch.

The assailant, firing bursts of heat from his feet, flew, fist first into Robin.

"REASON?" he shouted. Another tear came from under the mask. "REASON? YOU HAVE NO REASON!"

He raised his fist, which was suddenly encased with black energy.

He turned to look at Raven.

"Control your emotions," she droned. "I don't know what has caused such hatred, but it is poisoning your mind."

"MIND YOURSELF, WITCH!" He suddenly rocketed toward her, breaking Raven's mental grip, causing her to kneel on the ground.

He was deflected in his assault by a charging metal man.

The attacker was violently thrown against another wall, breaking it to pieces and shaking the building.

Cyborg took a few steps back as the attacker lifted himself up.

_'Guy's got more than heat…'_

Out of the corner of Geo-Force's eye, he saw something.

The building, when it shook, released some debris…and it was headed toward…

"Tina!"

There was a little girl…short blond hair, blue eyes, away from the crowd…right where the rocks would fall.

Geo-Force suddenly ran over and raised his hands to the air.

His eyes glowed yellow as the rock suddenly slowed to a crawl.

The girl, her eyes which looked at Geo-Force, now looked at that rock that was falling on her…very slowly.

She sidestepped out of the way. The rock fell down and hit the ground, raising up a little pile of dust.

He turned toward the girl, eyes normal blue, kneeled down, and grabbed her shoulders. "Why are you still here? It's dangerous!"

The girl looked up and responded "Why are you fighting the Teen Titans?"

The boy's eyes, which showed concern, now took on a stony appearance. "They're villains at heart. They pretend to save other people…when they really hurt them…" The boy's voice turned to a whisper. "They hurt someone close to me."

The girl looked at him, pleadingly. "Even if they did, they don't mean it. Sometimes they make mistakes…but they try to make it right in the end."

"You don't understand…"

"I do! They saved me…I was so scared…but they went out of their way to save me." The little girl smiled. "And they told me not to be scared, the monster was gone…" She then gave a brief glance toward Raven.

"Tina!"

The boy that ran up was only a few years older, and also blue-eyed. He wore a backwards yellow baseball cap, covering his hair, but you could see the red in it.

"Big brother!" The girl ran to embrace him.

"You shouldn't do that Tina!"

"But I had to!"

"Your brother's right." Geo-Force stood up and looked at the sibling, his face still one of stone. "You have to go, it's dangerous."

But they just stared.

Suddenly, Geo-Force looked around, and still saw a crowd of people, just staring at the costumed warrior.

They were caught in indecision. He was obviously concerned about other people…but he called the Titans villains.

The people couldn't place him. The warrior was not on the lines of black and white.

Geo-Force didn't know that. All he knew was that they were caught in the line of fire. "ALL OF YOU!" he shouted. "GET OUT OF HERE!"

But they just stared.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" His voice was almost frantic in its intensity.

He turned to look toward the Titans.

They were staring with the same shock as the onlookers. All of them speechless.

The attacker's eyes narrowed. "We'll finish later…someplace where's there's less people…"

With that, his eyes glowed, and he rocketed into the air.

The Titans were so frazzled by this turn of events, they didn't bother to pursue…

* * *

**Titans ****Tower****: Living Room.**

SNAP SNAP SNAP

"Okay…Geo-Force. His supposed to be a super-hero in Europe but he's _recently _popped up in America. He has improved strength and resistance, can increase or decrease the force of gravity, (which explains what happened to you Starfire) and can fire blasts of heat from his hands and feet. He probably flies by using the latter two powers…"

SNAP SNAP SNAP

The Titans were in the living room. Sitting by the main computer/TV screen, Robin was busy tapping stuff into his keyboard.

On the monitor were various newspaper articles, showcasing the Titans latest…rival.

One article caught the Titans' attention. It was a cover story from a British newspaper. Under it, there was a picture of Geo-Force chasing after an old man, a cane in one hand, a scepter in another.

The headline? **GEO-FORCE SAVES QUEEN'S SCEPTER FROM MAD MOD.**

"I knew the British didn't like him." Cyborg muttered.

No-one replied…but no-one said the comment was out of place.

Anything was better than thinking about the bizarre enemy they face.

_'Okay…he fights us, with no provocation whatsoever, like any villain, but he saved those kids…whose side is he on?'_

SNAP SNAP SNAP

The papers were just flabbergasting the Titans more. Starfire put it best.

"If he is a superhero, then why does he call us the enemy?"

To that, Raven had a response. "Good and evil is based on perception. I felt his emotions. He genuinely believes we are hurting innocent people, and until he realizes that were not, he's just going to keep being our enemy."

"The question is…" mused Robin. "Why does he think we're the bad guys?"

SNAP SNAP SNAP

"Beast Boy, will you stop doing that?" Cyborg said exasperatedly.

The shapeshifter was off to the side, snapping his fingers continuously.

"Dude…" he muttered. "There's something familiar about that Geo-Force guy..."

"Perhaps you have met him?" Starfire said, eyes filled with hope.

"No, it's not that…but there's something I can't put my finger on."

Beast Boy snapped his fingers again, trying to work out the puzzle his brain was giving to him.

"It's probably nothing…"

"What is familiar about him Beast Boy?" Raven interrupted Cyborg.

The green sprite turned to Raven. "I'm not sure…"

"Concentrate."

"Well…"

Beast Boy sighed….

"It was his eyes….they were blue…but they changed…"

Beast Boy then put his hand under his chin.

"…into yellow…his hands glowed yellow too..."

Cyborg sighed. "Well, we're not going to solve anything by just sitting here."

"Yes," agreed Starfire. "Perhaps we should work on a way to make the 'Geo-Force' our friend."

"Friend…" Beast Boy muttered…

And then it hit him…all of it…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"You were the best friend I ever had."_

_"I hurt your friend because he hurts others."_

_Blue eyes…._

_Blue eyes that turned pure yellow._

_"Earth, walked, **red**…"_

_The hands glowed too…_

_Geo_

_Gaia_

_Earth_

_Terra_

_Terra_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"TERRA!"

Beast Boy suddenly shouted the name, eyes opened in shock.

The other Titans looked at him, flabbergasted.

"Don't you get it?" Beast Boy said, still reeling a bit from his sudden insight. "They have earth-based power…and their eyes are blue unless they use their powers! Then their eyes and hands turned yellow! They even sound alike!"

"Beast Boy…" It was Cyborg. "I think…"

"Wait a minute. Beast Boy may be on to something."

Robin was at his keyboard typing. Scanning the monitor.

"Of course…Markovia!"

"Pardon?"

"Markovia. It's a country in Europe near Belgium, France, and Luxembourg."

As Robin spoke, various pieces of data scrolled across the monitor.

"The country was said to be founded by a mysterious warrior who was of and commanded the Earth, and that he founded the Markovian royal bloodline."

Robin typed some more on this keyboard.

"At first, this myth may seem just that, a myth…except for the fact that the current Prince and Princess were born with uncontrollable powers."

The Titans were all looking at Robin, with bated breath.

"The children were Brion Markov and his half-sister, Tara…and if I can just pull this off…got it!"

Suddenly, a picture appeared on the huge monitor of two young, well dressed children, both with blue eyes.

The first child was a boy of about twelve, with a stone-like countenance. His messy red hair covered his ears. Even though the photo was at least six years old, even though the boy in the photo wasn't wearing a mask; it was still obvious that the child was Geo-Force.

The other child, whose smile did not reach her sad eyes, was a younger Terra.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"It all fits…the uncontrollable powers."_

_"__Tara__, Terra. The names are alike."_

_"It says that the children were sent to the famed Markovian scientist, Dr. Helga Jace, who researched metahuman powers. She worked with the children in an attempt to control their gifts."_

Beast Boy was in "the room", the objects curled around his dog form.

_"There was an accident…and then __Tara__ disappeared. Not long after Brion disappeared too, although he has been spotted in Markovia occasionally. My guess is that he visits."_

_"Let me guess, Geo-Force appeared when Brion left."_

_"That's about the size of it."_

She had a brother. She never told him…but then…he never told her about his family…about snakes and waterfalls.

_"So the Geo-Force is Terra's...what is a half-sibling?"_

_"It means the children shared only one biological parent. In their case, it was the same father. The mothers both passed away sometime after their children were born."_

_"Passed away?"_

_"It means they died, Starfire."_

Beast Boy left before he could hear the rest. It was so glaringly obvious.

Terra ran from her home, fearing her powers. And her older brother, who had control, tried to find her,

And when he saw what happened to her, he blamed the Titans.

The bitter irony is that it was true. In some ways, the Titans were to blame.

Even as a dog, he still cried, cursing the anaconda, cursing the waterfall.

_Cursing the green monkey._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Raven waited outside "the room" sitting down on the floor.

She saw Beast Boy leave.

Recently, those two had gotten closer. Not in any romantic way, but in a "big sister, little brother" way.

She could feel his pain.

"Wat'cha doin', Raven?"

"Hello Cyborg."

The metal man walked over to the psychic sorceress as she got up.

"Is Beast Boy okay?"

"He's been in there, locked in his room for the past hour or so."

"Sounds like someone I know."

Raven glared at Cyborg a bit as he knocked on the door. "Hey BB, open up!"

"GRRRRRRRR." The growl came from inside.

Raven smirked. "Sounds like someone _I_ know."

"Very funny." Cyborg muttered as he pushed open the door with his bare hands.

They walked into the former room of the former "Sixth Titan." Beast Boy was laying on the bed in dog form, curled around a sliver heart and butterfly.

He quickly turned into his normal form. "Go away."

"Beast Boy…"

"I said GO AWAY!"

Raven looked up at Cyborg.

"Maybe we should…"

But Cyborg knew what to do. "Beast Boy, we miss her too…"

He looked up, the tear lines on his face glistening. "Not as much as I have…"

Cyborg sat down next to him on the bed. Raven followed suit.

"I cared about her…I felt we had something special." Beast Boy mused to himself.

"Geo-Force thinks we hurt her…and I know I did…"

_"You lied to me!"_

"I never should have let her run away that time. I should have gone after her. "

Raven sighed.

"Beast Boy…I should have guessed she had uncontrollable powers. I could have helped her…"

_"Help her? You couldn't even help yourself!"_

Raven ignored the voice in the back of her mind, as always.

"What's done is done," said Cyborg. "Monday-morning quarterbacking never solves anything."

"Agreed," said Raven. "We have to find a way to convince Geo-Force that it wasn't us who…" Raven stopped in mid-sentence.

An idea was forming in her mind.

Beast Boy thought that she just couldn't finish the horrible sentence. "Has Robin figured out what's caused…all this?"

Cyborg's face was impassive. "He says he has his theories."

Beast Boy only nodded.

Cyborg's face then turned into a smile. "We'll find a way BB. We'll find a way to help both Geo-Force and Terra…"

"Cyborg…Raven…thank you."

To her surprise, Raven took Beast Boy's hand in hers. Cyborg followed suit.

They sat that way for a few minutes.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"I knew I'd find you here…"

The three looked up, seeing Robin and Starfire at the door.

"Geo-Force has given us a message," murmured the latter. The other's noticed she had omitted the "the."

"He says to meet him at the desert."

**

* * *

****Desert near ****Jump ****City**

_"Happy birthday __Tara__!" He presented the hairclip._

_"Brion…it's beautiful…"_

_Brion smiled. "You're the butterfly __Tara__. I guess that makes me the moth."_

Brion "Geo-Force" Markov, Prince of Markovia (although the latter was not something he was particularly fond of showing off) waited in the desert, near the cave.

The cave where his sister lived.

Not half-sister, just sister. As far as Brion/Geo-Force was concerned, they were full siblings.

He never knew his mother well. He never knew his step-mother well, although he was never conscious of disliking her. His father was a nice man, and he cared about them, but he was always busy. Still, Geo-Force noted that whenever he and Tara were with Dad, there were less "accidents."

The closest thing they had to a mother was Dr. Jace. She never feared their powers, gave them encouragement, and told them that they weren't mutants, they were just "special."

But most of all, Tara and Brion had each other.

But when the accident came…

_"Why didn't I go after you Tara? Why?"_

He did run after her, did try to find her…but she eluded him each time.

"_I should have been there __Tara__!"_

And then he learned the truth…she had fallen into the hands of the Teen Titans.

He hands clenched into fists. They only pretended to be superheroes, when in reality they were selfish and uncaring.

They made Tara believe she was welcome, made her believe she was loved.

But it was a lie. They only cared for her power…and when she realized what was going on…

_"They threw you away…"_

The Titans would pay. They would pay.

The Imp most of all…

The plan was already set up. Every detail was meticulously checked.

Though the Titans had more numbers, he was confident that he…_they…_would win.

_"Tara…my sister, the butterfly...for you, I will bring the Teen Titans to justice…"_

He saw them off in the distance. His face turned into stone.

_But his heart still wept._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The Titans leaped, flew, and ran over in the dusk to the large cave where the costumed warrior stood.

Landing on the ground, they faced each other for a few moments, the black mouth of the cave serving as a background for Geo-Forces form.

Finally he spoke. "So…have you finally figured it out?" His voice was as hard as a rock.

Beast Boy muttered. "Geo-Force…your sister Terra…"

"TARA!" The rock quickly cracked. "HER NAME IS TARA! DON'T USE THAT CURSED NAME YOU GAVE HER!"

"Geo-Force…" This was Starfire. "Brion, we never wanted to hurt her…"

"Lies." His voice hardened again, but there was still venom.

"Look," sighed Robin. "Just hear us out okay? Whatever you think we did to Ter…Tara…it's not true. You have to listen to us. _It's not true._"

"Shereally was our friend." Murmured Cyborg.

"If you look into your heart, you know we speak the truth." Raven spoke with only a touch of remorse in her voice.

Geo-Force opened his mouth to reply, and one was given…except Geo-Force didn't say it.

"Don't listen to their hypocrisy Geo-Force. That's how they fooled Tara."

Robin suddenly felt an immense wave of cold.

"Starfire…did you..?"

"I heard it Robin." Her voice quaked with fear.

The speaker stepped out of the shadows of the cave.

His body was covered in black, with silver circlets, around his lower and upper legs, and his lower arms near his hands.

His hands had silver gloves, and more decorated plates of armor were on his upper arms and shoulders.

From his shoulder to the metallic belt he wore, there was a silver strap that made him look like a hunter. Around his neck was another circle of silver.

And the mask.

On the bottom were four holes. One half was colored fully black. The other was gold.

And most frightening of all, the one eye from the gold side. Only that eye.

"Hello Robin. Did you get my present?"

As one the Titans spat the name out.

"Slade."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Well Titans, it seems as though you haven't forgotten me."

Slade stood, his eye staring out at the Titans. He was just as Robin last saw him.

His one eye turned to Robin. "I trust you knew I was still alive?"

Robin glared. "I should have guessed it was you behind this."

Beast Boy turned to Geo-Force, shouting frantically. "Geo-Force, you can't listen to this guy! He's the one who…"

"Told me the truth about you, and what you did to Tara." Geo-Force's eyes narrowed, in a similar way to Slade's eye. "Slade has been trying to help other people…to save them from your tyranny…and you portray him as the villain!"

"He IS the villain!" Beast Boy was pleading.

"It's like I said Geo-Force," Slade purred in his malevolent voice. "The Teen Titans try to turn everything upside down. They make the heroes villains and the villains heroes. But you and I know the truth, Geo-Force. You and I know what they did to Tara."

"Yes Slade…" muttered Geo-Force, his voice stone. "I know."

Beast Boy had a pained look on his face. '_Why did it have to be Slade?'_

If it was anything else, there might have been a chance…

But this was Slade, and if you fell into his web of lies, there was usually no getting out.

_'I'm starting to wish it was Brother Blood,' _thought Cyborg.

Starfire's eyes burned a fierce green, her mind full of every Tamaranian synonym for "villain" or "demon".

Raven was struggling to keep her anger in check, even as the mad feminine laughter grew louder in her mind.

And Robin didn't need to see under Slade's mask to know that he was smiling maliciously.

"So Slade…is Geo-Force your new apprentice?"

"Oh nonsense Robin. He's my assistant in bringing you to justice, nothing more…speaking of which, Geo-Force? Will you do the honors?"

Geo-Force mouth opened in an ugly grimace. "I thought you'd never ask...GRAHHHHHH!"

Thrusting his arms forward, his eyes and hands glowing with a yellow light, he aimed for the ground right under the Titans.

Suddenly, they collapsed under the stream of gravity.

But Geo-Force was not entirely aiming for them.

The very desert under the Titans feet was hallowed out, leaving a vast cavern.

And with nothing under it, the ground broke.

The Titans couldn't escape, because they were still under the effects of the gravity.

Even before they fell into the cavern below, Geo-Force flew over, grabbed Raven and Beast Boy, and threw them against a wall, well away from the hole.

Slade jumped down and pushed a button in his wrist compartment. Suddenly a shimmering white field covered the hole…

_And group of metal doors rose up, separating the Titans…_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Robin picked himself up and shook his head.

A quick view of the premises showed he was underground.

Some light filtered through the hole in the ceiling, but there was a white shimmering aura around it. _'A force field.'_

A quick look around him showed Starfire and Cyborg getting up.

There was no sign of Raven, Beast Boy, or Geo-Force.

But Slade was standing right there, in front of a wall of metal.

"Now it's time to bring you Titans to justice."

"Drop the act, Slade."

Slade chuckled. "Of course. It's not like any of them can hear us. Personally, I was starting to gag on his 'heroism'."

Starfire roared."You lied to him Slade, you lied to him, just like Terra, you…you…_gem'al tiah Citadel!"_Her voice quivered with rage and sadness.

"Well can you blame me if gullibility runs in the family? You know, Terra still serves me, even now…"

Cyborg then decided to fire his newly repaired sonic cannon, while charging.

With his superhuman reflexes, Slade dodged both the blue-white blast and the charging metal man. As Cyborg passed, Slade threw a punch.

WHAP! Cyborg was thrown against the metal wall.

"If I hear correctly Cyborg, you have your own enemy now."

"Not something I'm proud of." Cyborg muttered.

_SHINGSHINGSHING_

Flying low to the ground, Starfire unloaded her Starbolts and eyebeams at Slade. Again he dodged, this time grabbing Starfire by the leg.

"Ah!"

"Starfire!"

"You know Robin, I realized that I can hurt you most of all by hurting this girl."

Moving at inhuman speed he slammed her into the ground once, twice, and tossed her next to Cyborg in a hammer spin.

The ground gave up dust from both slams.

Robin wasted no time in getting his staff out. Leaping with a swing, he was blocked by Slade's quick parry with his own staff.

As their weapons collided, Slade spoke. "You know Robin, that image of me you saw was wrong. You have gotten better." Slade then lashed out with a kick that sent Robin sprawling.

"Of course, you're still not good enough."

Robin got up. "You watched that whole thing, didn't you?"

"Well not the whole thing. I couldn't just spy in your tower…but I did see how you threatened your friends…you haven't changed much at all, have you Robin?"

Robin leaped up again, staff swinging.

More thrusts, more parries. Suddenly, their staffs collided, their faces held out over them. "You know Robin," grunted Slade, "you're the one responsible for this."

Robin immediately pulled back. "Just what are you talking about, Slade?"

"You haven't figured it out? Perhaps I spoke too soon about you getting better."

Slade rested his staff on his shoulder. "You see Robin, I knew you would figure out Terra's secret. And I knew she would run right into my arms. If you hadn't opened your mouth about her "controlling her powers" she never would have betrayed your team, and I never would have sent her half-brother after you."

Robin's mouth gritted in fury. Yes…he knew it was his simple comment on Terra controlling her powers that made her run away. But… "How do you know, Slade?"

"Oh, she told me pretty much everything while she was under my care…but Robin," Slade moved forward, eye narrowing. "If you just stayed as my apprentice, I wouldn't have had to get a replacement. I wouldn't have had Terra betray you. I wouldn't have you chasing after ghosts only you could see. And we certainly wouldn't be fighting right now…although you'd still be fighting your friends. But by now, I know you would have given in."

Slade then proceeded to front flip over a hate filled Robin, as the burst of Starbolts and Sonics hit the ground where he was.

Cyborg, arm cannon raised, spoke for the other Titans. "Slade, just shut up."

* * *

**Behind the metal wall**

Raven and Beast Boy got up from the ground.

Unlike the other section, there was no hole in the wall. However, there were some lights strung on ceiling.

Beast Boy suddenly and sadly remembered that time in the diamond mind as he and Raven looked at their opponent.

Geo-Force's eyes looked more like Slade's than ever, with their narrowness. Raven could sense his emotions: anger, sadness, and most of all, a burning shame.

He spoke, his voice full of hatred. "I separated you from your 'friends' because I wanted to fight you two myself. You all hurt Tara, but you two hurt her the most.

A pit of fear lodged itself in Beast Boy's stomach.

"You, witch," he pointed to Raven "pretended to have the same problems she had, pretended to have uncontrollable powers. You pretended to be her friend, her companion in suffering, when you could control your powers all along."

Ignoring the laughter in her head, Raven responded, her voice barely a whisper "But I do have…"

"And **you**." He interrupted Raven and pointed to Beast Boy. "Slade told me about what you did. You hurt her the most. You pretended to care…" a tear slid down Geo-Force's cheek. "You pretended to love her."

Beast Boy finally snapped. **"I DID LOVE HER!"**

Geo-Force was bowled over by a giant T-Rex.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Raven watched the battle.

Or should she say, she felt the battle.

Geo-Force and Beast Boy were fighting with all the powers at their disposal, the former firing heat and changing gravity, the other shifting forms as fast as he could.

Neither seemed to be winning.

Raven could feel the emotions of her friends in the room near them.

She could only feel their hate for Slade.

She could only feel the rage dwelling in the hearts of Beast Boy and Geo-Force, who were fighting…no, _killing_ each other over the same woman they loved.

The thought came to her unbidden. _"Hatred shall rule!"_

The hatred would destroy them, destroy them all…except Slade, who would emerge victorious.

She couldn't participate in the battle. She didn't want to hurt Beast Boy…and she couldn't reach into his mind.

_'His mind!'_

The idea she was thinking of before burst into her head. She had to contact the others!

But could she contact three people? She had to try.

Even as the battle raged on, she pressed herself against the wall, and entered in meditation position.

She spoke the words "Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

_'Mother, help me.'_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Cyborg was thrown against the wall. Again.

_'We need Raven and Beast Boy here!'_

Slade was like a maniac, dodging their attacks and hitting them with his own.

Suddenly, Cyborg saw it. On the floor, a large shadow of a bird.

Unseen by anyone except him, it split into three and entered the fallen bodies of Robin and Starfire.

And himself.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"Cyborg…"_

_"Raven! Are you okay?"_

_"Sorry…it's hard to maintain the connection."_

_"Raven! Where are you? Where is Beast Boy? You have to help us!"_

_"Don't worry Starfire…I have an idea…"_

_"So do __I.__ Titans, break down that metal wall. Don't let Slade know you're doing it. Just direct your attacks against it."_

_"I hear ya loud and clear Robin."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The connection broke. Raven immediately turned to the metal wall, ignoring the battle between the brother and boyfriend.

_'Terra…if you're here, help me out.'_

Black energy from her hands burst out against the wall as her eyes glowed white.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Robin fired explosive disks.

Cyborg shot his sonic cannon.

Starfire threw her Starbolts.

Slade dodged them effortlessly. "You've all gotten sloppy, it seems. You still haven't hit me."

Robin looked at Slade…and then looked at the wall behind him. "Who said we were trying to hit you, Slade?"

Suddenly a blast of black energy shot out from the metal wall, creating a man-sized hole. The energy dissipated and a swish of a cloak was heard.

Geo-Force and Beast Boy paused in their combat.

Robin tumbled through the opening, pulled out something from his utility belt, and yelled. "Listen to this Geo-Force!"

In his hand, he held a miniature tape recorder.

Slade's eye grew with shock, and then narrowed as his voice played from the recorder.

_"Drop the act, Slade."_

_"Of course. It's not like any of them can hear us. Personally, I was starting to gag on his 'heroism'."_

_"You lied to him Slade, you lied to him, just like you did to Terra, you…you…_gem'al tiah Citadel_!" _

_"Well can you blame me if gullibility runs in the family? You know, Terra still serves me, even now…"_

Geo-Forces eyes widened in shock as Beast Boy, who was in the form of a bear, turned back to normal.

Suddenly, their hands were grabbed by blue-cloaked Raven, her eyes glowing white.

_"Geo-Force…see what we have seen. Know what really happened to your sister."_

And Raven promptly showed Geo-Force her and Beast Boy's memories.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"The Earth is my home!"_

_"Tastes like ice cream mixed with sushi!"_

_"So you can't fully control your powers." "Promise you won't tell anyone."_

_"You said I could do it, and I did!"_

_"You lied to me!"_

_"So which team am I on?"_

_"Why can't you trust me?"_

_"Sorry we got off to such a rocky start." "Actually, I think that went pretty well."_

_"Do you trust me?" "More than anyone I know."_

_"Beast Boy, you're my definition of fun!"_

_"If I told you something really horrible, would you still be my friend?"_

_"Hello Terra. Remember me?"_

_"She is not your friend. She is my apprentice."_

_"You could never give her what she needed."_

_"Slade was right. You have no friends."_

_"Hey guys? Miss me?"_

_"You were always so easy to fool."_

_"I trusted you! We trusted you! And you treated us like dirt."_

_"Terra?" "Destroy me…"_

_"Excuse my apprentice. As always, she can't control herself."_

_"It's not too late…you can choose."_

_"Terra's power triggered a volcano!" "It's big enough to take out the entire city, and way too big for us to stop."_

_"You were the best friend I ever had."_

_The images flew in Geo-Forces mind. Terra running from the scorpion, her time in the tower, Beast Boy saving her from the sandstorm, her sudden return. The "date"._

_Then Slade's face in the Ferris car. Terra's admission that she betrayed the Titans._

_Her battle with her former friends._

_Slade taking full control._

_Her defiance of him...and her final sacrifice._

_And the statue…_

_TERRA_

_A TEEN TITAN_

_A TRUE FRIEND_

_And Geo-Force realized that Slade was lying all along._

_The Titans were her friends._

_It was Slade that used her. It was Slade that corrupted her. It was Slade that threw her away._

_And the anger finally was too much to bear._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

**"SLADE!"**

His eyes glowed with energy, his face contorted with rage as the ground around him cracked and steamed.

He had control yes, and it wouldn't hurt anyone, but his power was now fueled with true fury…at the man who twisted his sister to his malevolent ends.

The man in question stepped out of the hole. His eye seemed not to care about the display of Geo-Force's anger.

**"YOU LIED TO ME! YOU LIED TO _HER!"_**

"I never lied. You asked to know what happened to your sister, andI told you. Your sister asked for control, and I gave it to her. And you are just as ungrateful as she was for my generosity."

**"GAHHHHHHHHHHH!"**

Geo-Force rocketed toward Slade. He dodged the charge…but this time Geo-Force turned around and lashed out with a kick.

WHAM CRACK CLUNK

Slade burst through a weakened, but intact portion of the metal wall and fell into another room.

Geo-Force rushed after him, fists flying.

Slade blocked the attacks, with difficulty, each blow as hard as a rock.

Suddenly Geo-Force grabbed Slade's mask. His hand and eyes glowed.

"AUGH!" Steam rose up from his hand as Slade twisted himself from Geo-Force's grip. His hands were covering his now burning mask and eye.

"You'll pay for that you little…"

WHAM!

This time it was the fist of a green gorilla that sent Slade sprawling.

Beast Boy turned back to normal and glanced at Geo-Force.

Geo-Force glanced back.

In that glance, everything was understood and resolved. They were now united in a single purpose.

Kill Slade.

Beast Boy turned into a rhino as he charged at the masked mastermind, even as he got up.

Slade tried to dodge…

But Geo-Force had increased his gravity.

WHAM!

Slade was pinned against a wall of stone. Beast Boy got out of the way as Geo-Force grabbed him and threw him to the other side of the room.

Slade got up again to only face the powers of an earthen warrior and a green shapeshifter.

The Titans were speechless. Even Robin was paralyzed by the shocking display before him.

Unbidden, came the thought: '_It should be me beating him up.'_

Beast Boy now, a T-Rex, grabbed Slade in his jaws and swung him around like a rag doll.

He threw him to the ground. It made a sizable crater, as Geo-Force, hands and eyes glowing yellow, increased gravity once again.

Slade pulled himself out and saw the faces of the boyfriend and the brother, looking at him with no pity, only pure hate.

Only with blame.

_'They're going to kill me…'_

Slade's eye widened as he felt an emotion he rarely felt.

Fear for his life.

"Slade." The voices spoke as one. "You are the most despicable creature to have ever walked the earth. You can never understand the pain you've caused us, the pain you've caused her. For all the crimes you've done, we can never give you your full punishment."

Geo-Forced picked him up as Beast Boy turned into a growling velociraptor.

"But we can certainly try, can't we?" asked Geo-Force menacingly. The raptor growled in agreement.

He was about to feed Slade to the dinosaur when black energy pulled the raptors mouth shut and made him drop his captive. They turned around to look at Raven, eyes glowing white.

"You can't do this."

"He hurt her. He deserves worse."

"He does…but is that what she would have wanted, for you to be as cold as he is?"

The two stopped struggling.

The black energy dissipated as Beast Boy turned back into normal.

"She wouldn't," he murmured.

"Pity."

While they were distracted, Slade had pulled out an object from his wrist compartment. A huge blast of white light issued from it.

Everyone collapsed to the ground, blinded…except for Slade.

As Robin heard the force field dissipate, as he heard Slade leap out of the cavern, he heard his sinister voice.

"Until next time Robin…"

Geo-Force was down on the ground, his rage replaced with despair.

"Tara…"

* * *

_It was bright afternoon in Markovia. The setting sun turned the sky orange._

_The setting was a desert of rocks. In the distance was a woman with a white lab coat and glasses._

_She was a safe distance away, in case there were problems. The children insisted on it._

_Looking through white binoculars, Dr. Helga Jace spoke through her walkie-talkie. "Are you ready?" Her European accent was heavy in her voice._

_Several yards away to the west, a young Brion Markov spoke. "Yes we are."_

_He was dressed in a yellow shirt and sweatpants. Around his hands and feet were red gloves and boots, which extended up the arms and legs._

_His voice also had a European accent. It would be later when he would exercise his natural talent for mimicking various dialects of English almost perfectly._

_Tara__ would do it even better._

_Dr. Jace gave them to Geo-Force to not burn things by touching them. The gloves were designed only to emit heat when the user willed it._

_Brion didn't need them anymore. He had ceased to burn people by touching them and leave marks on the floors. He had ceased to spontaneously create a field of low or high gravity around him without consciously doing it. In short, he could control his powers, and he wore the gloves as a sign of respect._

_Plus it was __Tara__'s favorite color._

_Little Tara Markov was standing in front of a mountain, dressed in the same clothes she would wear when she would meet the Titans for the first time, in a similar place, far in the future._

_In her hair she wore the butterfly clip Brion gave her for her birthday. Around her eyes were her protective goggles._

_Unlike Brion, she still had trouble. She still caused earthquakes, avalanches, rockslides._

_But she had her brother. She had hope that things would be better. After all, he learned to control her powers…so could she._

_That day would remove that hope forever._

_"Okay __Tara__, you can do it."_

_Tara__ only gave a smile…still, it didn't reach her sad eyes._

_Her hands and eyes glowing with yellow energy, she focused on moving the mountain upwards._

_In the future, Brion would call this moment "The Accident."_

_Tara__ screamed as she flew into the air. All around her, rocks flew in a messed up, disorganized pattern._

_The mountain wasn't moved, it was demolished._

_Back east, Dr. Jace watched the chaos. "Brion, stop her!"_

_Brion ran forward…and the rock hit him._

_Tara__ turned and saw her brother heading straight between a rock and the edge of a cliff...the rock and the hard place._

**_"BRION!"_**

_The rock stopped before it could squish Brion against the cliff edge._

_It all stopped…there was silence…_

_No, there was the sound of __Tara__'s tears._

_"No…Brion…I killed him."_

_She didn't see that he was saved._

_"I KILLED HIM!" _

_She shrieked as the Earth moved under her, as she floated on a platform of rock._

_Crying, pleading for forgiveness, cursing her existence, she flew away to the west._

_Brion slowly got up and saw her, as a speck on the horizon._

_"__TARA__! I'M STILL OKAY __TARA__!"_

_But his only answer was the wind._

* * *

**Titans ****Tower**

"You okay?"

Beast Boy's voice broke Geo-Force out of his reverie.

He was sitting on the rock beach around Titans Tower. The day was in morning.

"Yeah…look Beast Boy…back there I was so…thank you forforgiving me."

"It's what she would have wanted. If she came back, right now, we would have forgiven her."

"I know."

Beast Boy then took a seating position, ironically in the same place he sat that time before, with Terra.

"I was looking for her. I've been looking for her since she ran away. I ran around Europe trying to find her…then I looked in America…then I met him…"

He turned to look at Beast Boy.

"She was so scared of herself...when it happened…The Accident…she ran away…she thought I was dead."

Beast Boy nodded solemnly. "I saw it."

"You did?"

"When Raven showed you our memories, I got one of yours."

"It's my fault. I should have run after her, I shouldn't…"

"Have let her go." Beast Boy finished. "No, the blame is mine. I let her run away twice."

There was silence as they looked down in the water.

"I can't believe I believed Slade. To think the very person who…_used her _made me fight the people she called her friends…the people she loved."

He looked at Beast Boy again. "You did love her, didn't you?"

Beast Boy gave a smile. Geo-Force was familiar with it, it was Tara's smile. "I did…I felt we had so many things in common…she made me feel like I was actually needed. We were about to kiss before…well, you saw."

"I did."

"Like I said, I let her run away twice."

"But she ran from me first."

"But I drove her to Slade." That was Robin, who came out of the tower and sat down by them.

"Robin, no." Beast Boy was pleading. "It's not your fault."

"I think it is…it's just another mistake…if I knew it was a secret…"

"Monday-morning quarterbacking solves nothing."

"Agreed."

Those voices were Raven and Cyborg, respectively, who joined the group on the beach.

Raven looked at Geo-Force. "The first time she came, I could feel…not that something was wrong with her, but that she was frightened. The second time…I felt guilt, and..."

"Deception." Cyborg finished.

Raven sighed. "Terra and I were so alike we could have been sisters…my powers…"

"I saw..." murmured Geo-Force.

"Yes…of course…"

"Tara…a spy…" Geo-Force was musing to himself.

"I hate Slade." That was Beast Boy.

"We all do." This was Starfire who flew down. "Terra…Tara was not the only one whom Slade has harmed."

Robin looked up to the sky. "I was the first one Slade picked." Geo-Force turned to him. "He tried to make me like him, tried to make me evil…I was forced to be his apprentice…for my friends."

Geo-Force stared quizzically.

"Slade put these nanoprobes in everyone except Robin. With one push of a button, we'd be dead."

Geo-Force nodded.

"Look…guys…I'm sorry for what I did to you…I was so blind with rage that…"

"You are forgiven. Indeed, you have been forgiven, friend Geo-Force. We would have done the same thing, were we…'wearing your shoes'?"

"In your shoes."

"Yes. I thank you."

There was silence for a few moments.

"She always liked to skip stones…" Geo-Force grabbed a rock in his hands.

The other Titans followed suit.

They threw the rocks over the lakes. Starfire's and Cyborg's bounced twice. Raven and Robin managed to get five skips.

Geo-Force's and Beast Boy's rocks skipped together almost to the other side.

Beast Boy looked at Geo-Force. "Would you like to see her?"

* * *

**Terra's Tomb.**

The cavern was dark and cold.

It was like a tomb…and indeed that's what it was.

In the center was the statue of a girl, hair flowing out behind her, arms to her sides.

The statue wasn't life-like. It was life.

The mark of a girl's sacrifice.

Beast Boy moved up. "Terra…It's me, Beast Boy…I've brought someone who wants to see you…badly."

He stepped aside to allow Geo-Force to walk up.

He took off his mask. "Tara…Tara, it's me, Brion."

He moved forward.

"Tara…it's been so long...I'm still alive Tara…I've always been alive." The tears fell down his face as he knelt to the ground.

"Oh Tara, I forgive you…I forgive you…but forgive me…forgive me for not being there for you. I should have been a better brother, I should have run after you…I should have hugged you like I always did and told you it would be all right."

He sobbed and looked up.

"You've become a beautiful woman Tara…and you've made such good friends…I shouldn't have let you end up this way…I met him Tara…I met Slade…he told me the Teen Titans killed you…he trapped me in sadness and hatred…Tara…I'm so sorry."

"They helped me out…Raven and Beast Boy…you have such good friends Tara…they helped me…Beast Boy still has the hairclip I gave you…"

He rose up off the floor and embraced the cold statue.

"I was so wrong Tara…you were still a caterpillar…and now you're a cocoon….I'll get you out Tara…I'll tell Dr. Jace…you remember her, right? She knew more about us than we did…if anyone can help…it's her."

Geo-Force sobbed again in his gentle embrace of the statue of his sister. "Tara…when you come out…you'll be a butterfly for real…you'll fly Tara…you'll fly…we're all waiting Tara…all of us…Tara…I love you sister…"

And Beast Boy then went up to the statue, placing a new addition to the plaque at its base.

TERRA

A TEEN TITAN

A TRUE FRIEND

And now it had a new line.

A TRUE SISTER  
-Geo-Force

* * *

(Fade to black…) 

**Postscripts:**

Special thanks to Blackshield 'cause she beta read this.

Geo-Force is in fact not an OC, but a character from the comic books. He is Terra's half-brother in the comics, although he was never a Teen Titan but a member of the first Outsiders, led by Batman. The second incarnation of The Outsiders is led by Nightwing (a.k.a. the original Robin), although Geo-Force is not a member.

He and Terra weren't originally relatives, but when the designers found they both had Earth wielding characters on the two teams, they interwove their back stories.

Dr. Helga Jace is another character for the comic book. In it, she originally studied two super-powered kids named Baran and Selinda Flinders, who latter became Mammoth and Shimmer.

A very special thanks to Titans Tower (dot) com for providing all the comic book info, and inspiring this fic in the first place.

The back story given to Terra and Geo-Force in this fic is an adaptation from the comics. It was a simple matter of twisting the back story to fit the character. Go to the above site a mentioned if you want to find the original back story that I adapted.

This fic was not meant to be a slap at the various "Titan siblings" fics, but the people who make them up obviously have no idea about the characters…dumb Mary Suers.

Then again, Geo-Force might have a bit of me in him…I also have a talented little sister, and sometimes I worry about her…when she's not driving me up the wall.

By the way…

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own Geo-Force, but I own my interpretation of his character and appearance (the latter of which is confused in my mind with Kid Flash's appearance). Don't use this interpretation without my permission. However, anyone else can use this character.**

Please read, review, and show this fic to everyone who writes something about "Terra's long lost sister."


	2. Breakout

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans.**

(Begin fic)

* * *

**Jump ****City**** Prison**

The prison cafeteria.

Packed with criminals of all types and kinds.

And some bizarre super villains.

"Bad day, daddy?"

"Tell me about it."

"Don't you have any biscuits?"

"Wanna see a trick?"

"Did you hear about the latest director's cut of…"

The guard, attired in futuristic uniform looked at the usual crows of thieves, miscreants, and supervillains, all waiting in line for the prison food.

_'And they say cafeteria food is bad,' _thought the guard, remembering the time he had actually tried some... it was not a pleasant experience.

He turned around and snuck a glance at the criminals eating. There was Johnny Rancid, annoying motorcycle punk. Here was Adam Smith, better known as Adonis, the skinny boy who built a rather large suit. And here was…

_'Who is that guy?'_

His hair was short, practically a crew cut.

From a distance, it looked brown.

RIIIINNNNNNGGGGG

The bell rang. Time for work in the fields for minor offenders. Lockup for worse crooks. The guards eyes were on the man, even as he blended in among a swarm of similarly dressed prisoners.

_'His uniform is too big.'_

Indeed, it was. The sleeves hung over his hands.

From behind his mask, the guard trained his eyes on the prisoner. As he followed the crowd, the prisoner, unnoticed, made a quick turn to the left.

That was enough for the guard. He took the same left following the prisoner.

He followed at a safe distance, the sounds of the convicts leaving fading behind him.

The man was walking along, almost as if he was in an alley, and not in a prison.

The guard decided to give a warning. "Hey, you!"

The prisoner turned around, the stubble on his chin and black eyes visible. He gave a scowl.

The guard looked him over. '_I've seen his face before…black eyes…brown hair…stubble on chin …'_

It dawned on him suddenly. Under his mask the guards eyes widened.

"Prisoner 385901?"

The German miner muttered, "I prefer Otto von Furth."

He raised his hand behind him, and thrust it forward.

Except it wasn't a hand, it was a sludgy tentacle.

WHAM! The guard was knocked out.

The arm retracted and reshaped itself into a humanoid form.

The prisoner looked down on the guard blankly.

**"Were we caught?"**

The odd, mechanical voice came from inside of his shirt. Suddenly, what looked like a black computer chip with red markings popped up.

"The guard noticed me. But he won't remember anything for the next five minutes."

The computer chip's red lines seemed to swivel. A closer inspection would reveal it to be a single eye, with a somewhat concerned expression.

**"Overload thinks that's when the guards find us gone."**

"Agreed. It's high time we find Cinderblock and get out of here…where is Cinderblock anyway?"

"FREEZE!"

A platoon of guards stood across from them, guns drawn.

Von Furth scowled again.

WHAM! Out of nowhere, a swarm of gray rocks ran right into the backs of many of the guards.

Electricity generated around the computer chip.

ZAP! The blue electricity shocked the guards into unconsciousness.

**"Pathetic human life-forms!"**A pause as the eye looked up. **"Overload means no offense."**

"None taken," muttered the prisoner. "I lost my humanity a while ago." He looked down at the pile of rocks.

It suddenly swarmed upward, turning into a humanoid giant with a square head. A cement block stuck out of its chest, another one from a stone 'belt.' A single block was on one knee.

The stones solidified. On top of the jaw with jutting teeth, a pair of red eyes glowed.

Cinderblock gave a grunt of recognition, then proceeded to bash down the wall.

Neither von Furth nor the computer chip was affected by this. They were used to the silence of the stone giant unless he was in battle.

_CRASH!_ The wall broke to pieces.

"_RARRRRR!_" Cinderblock charged out of the jail, like a bull.

Von Furth ran out behind him, throwing the computer chip. Before it hit the ground, blue-white electricity crackled from it, creating another humanoid mass with four protrusions that were arms and legs. What looked like a computerized bone structure glowed black from within.

Now fully formed, Overload began to shock the already firing guards with his electricity.

Von Furth stopped to look, then kept running.

"STOP!"

He stopped and looked at the guards behind him, their guns out.

"Now calm down…let's get you to your cell, prisoner…"

He cut them off, this time with a smile. "I prefer Otto von Furth...but…"

And he changed.

His form suddenly became a sludgy brown, then he grew.

His face vanished, replaced with what looked like a smattering of green sores. Similar spots broke out on his arms.

He opened his mouth, revealing rows of jagged teeth.

The guards were shocked as the human-turned monster roared in a sludgy voice.

_"Plasmus will do just fine!"_

Before the guards could fire, their guns were dissolved by the acid the monster spat…as well as a good deal of their suits.

As they ran, Otto Von Furth, better known as Plasmus, gave a toothy smile.

* * *

**Later…**

After storming through the prison defenses, Cinderblock, Overload, and Plasmus were out.

Even as he ran to the rendezvous point, Plasmus thought how everything worked so well.

How could a trio of mindless monsters pull off a successful escape from prison?

When the monsters weren't mindless.

The Titans didn't come. Plasmus knew they would not, as Overload managed to disable the various alarms in the prison before the breakout.

_'Of course, the real credit goes to Cinderblock.'_

Despite the fact that he never said a word, Cinderblock was the one who suggested and partially planned the escape.

He (Cinderblock considered himself a 'he,' though truly he was gender neutral) was also the first to discover the side effects from the time they spent "together."

Beneficial side effects. He was utterly shocked when he woke up and remained human.

Cinderblock learned some new tricks too. Breaking down into a pile of mobile rocks was certainly not something the statue could always do.

The rendezvous point was in site, at the middle of the forest. It was where Cinderblock literally pointed out the location where Slade would meet them.

Yes, Slade.

Von Furth could have just left. He could control his own powers; he could blend in with society. Few knew about him, and he could easily vanish among the crowds living a new life…

_'What life?'_ How would it be any different from the life he had before the accident, before the experiments, tunneling under the radioactive mines where death almost claimed him? He didn't like that life, and he didn't see a new life as a human being better.

Slade was tyrannical. Slade was insane. But being in the service of a criminal mastermind was much more fulfilling than a lowly mine worker-slash-science project.

The three monsters reformed. Almost as a reflex, Plasmus put on his human appearance.

**"When will he get here? Overload does not like to be kept waiting."**

Cinderblock was silent, as always.

Von Furth muttered to his electrified companion. "He'll be here. Slade fulfills his promises…often too well." Von Furth did his research.

_"Sadly, Slade did not make that promise."_

The three monsters looked around, trying to find the source of the sinister voice. It was futile; the source was inside their heads.

Suddenly, out of the shadows stepped out a man in a large red, featureless robe, fingers together. His stretched out eyes were pure black, with small white dots in the center.

The most bizarre thing about this villain was the transparent glass dome replacing the scalp, making his elongated brain clearly visible.

Cinderblock growled at the newcomer, eyes red…redder than normal, at any rate. The man put one hand down and raised the other.

"My apologies, Cinderblock. It was indeed I who sent the message."

Cinderblock seemed taken aback. Overload's eye widened in shock. Von Furth pondered. _'Can he read...?'_

"Yes, I can, Otto von Furth, alias Plasmus. Yes I can."

The man smiled.

**"What do you need us for, organic?"**

His smile grew even broader. "I require your assistance in an endeavor…"

Cinderblock grunted. It didn't take a mind-reader to guess that was a denial.

**"Overload does not like being lied to…"**

Von Furth thought for a second. Even though the opportunity was there…something about the man struck him as _wrong…_and it wasn't just the dome on his head. He shifted into his monstrous form, ready to attack. In his sludgy voice: _"Sorry, not interested."_

The man's expression became coolly neutral. "My apologies, but I cannot take 'no' for an answer." His eyes glowed pure red.

And then suddenly, Plasmus's mind felt _squished_, as if some force was acting on it. Clutching his head, he squealed in pain. He barely heard the screams of the others as the ground rose up to meet him and his world became black.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The monsters lay down on the ground. Fallen.

Then they began to rise up…but there was a faint reddish glow the in them.

The man's eyes returned to "normal". He smirked again. "I'm glad you see things my way. I really didn't want to take over your minds…then again, it was fairly easy to do."

The three just stared blankly at him, their bodies fully under the control of the psychic villain.

"We attack the Titans at dawn."

* * *

**Titans ****Tower**

_"My little Robin…"_

_There they were, not a day older or younger than the day they left this world._

_He ran up to her and gave her an embrace. "I miss you…both of you…"_

_The man came over and ruffled his hair. "We do too, son."_

_The boy looked up at his parent's smiling faces. "This is a dream…none of this is real."_

_Their faces both took a grave tone. The woman spoke in a worried voice. "We know it's not real…but something's going to happen that is very real…something _bad_…"_

_The father continued "It's only just begun son, and it's not going to end for quite some time…but still…"_

_Then a third voice, a cold human voice, interjected. "Robin, WAKE UP!"_

The Boy Wonder awoke to alarm bells and the shaking tower…

**T-T-T-T-T-T **

_"ROBIN!"_

_She shrieked as the figure flung the costumed boy into the floor._

_Charging energy in her palms, she shrieked. "You will not hurt him!"_

_The figure spoke in a whispery voice. "Too late."_

_And she saw its face._

_Those eyes…_

_Those eyes…_

_Suddenly, she heard a voice, a voice that seemed to come from inside her head… _

_"Koriand'r…"_

_The voice was female. _

_"Princess Koriand'r…"_

_The creature fell away, and all became black._

_"To whom am I speaking?"_

_"Princess Koriand'r…" the voice continued, either not hearing or not heeding the question. "He is coming…he is coming…"_

_"Who?"_

_"You must keep your friends as close as you can…you must, lest he turns them against…" The voice trailed off._

_"Who do you speak of? What do you speak of? In the name of X'hal, who are you?" She was exasperated at the voice's mystery._

_"You have not only the powers of X'hal, but her courage. You must use them both..."_

_The voice took a breath._

_"Now…awaken…"_

Starfire woke up abruptly, hearing the roar of a trio of monsters.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"So, where to?"_

_It was just a typical day for the five atypical teens. Just sitting in the car, driving around._

_"The mall of shopping?"_

_"Dude, the pizza place!"_

_"How about the amusement park?"_

_The girl sitting shotgun turned to the driver. "How about we just drive, and enjoy the day?" Her voice was almost monotonic._

_"Are you being sarcastic?"_

_"No."_

_"Then I think that's what we're doing."_

_"Duuude!__ Come on!"_

_"Hmm…yes, perhaps we should view the scape of the land."_

_"Landscape, Starfire. Speaking of which, you need to turn down your radio Cyborg."_

_"My radio?__ Robin, it's not even…"_

BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP!

He was jolted out of his dream by the alarm system.

Being part robot, he didn't hear it in his ears, but in his head.

Even as he detached himself, he mused about how he could still dream…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"So how are things, your Highness?"_

_The masked redhead just glared at him, which said "Don't call me that" more than any words could._

_"Heh heh…sorry Geo…"_

_His face then softened into a small smile. "So, who am I meeting?"_

_"Geo-Dude, your going to love this. Have you ever heard of Aqualad? I think you're going to get along great with him…ya know, water and earth…" Suddenly the speaker frowned. "I wish she could be here."_

_"She'd be the life of the party" muttered the masked boy._

_There was silence._

_Suddenly, a hand was on Beast Boy's back. "BB, WAKE…" _

"UP!"

"Gahhh!" He was jolted awake by Cyborg's arm pulling him from the bed.

"Five minutes…"

"The Tower's under attack! C'mon!"

And Cyborg, as always, "escorted" Beast Boy out of the latter's room.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_The woman put her arms around her, white cloak flapping as she moved._

_"I can hug you…"_

_"Mother…"_

_She felt her mother's arms around her back, pushing her into a hug. _

_And she did not feel fear, or pain. She just felt warmth._

_She hugged back, the warmth of the embrace calming her emotions._

_And she felt loved._

_No-one could ever hug her the way her mother did. No-one ever could…_

_Just the warmth and care in that embrace, not too tight but not too loose, applying pressure, but not pain._

_It's what she always wanted the most…to be held by her mother again._

_The only person she ever felt she could truly love…_

She was startled awake from the sweetest of dreams.

She did not need to hear or to see to know that there was trouble. Within a few seconds, Raven was in her cloak and out the door.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"GRAHHH!"

By the time the Titans got down to the front door, Cinderblock, Overload, and Plasmus were already trashing the places like the monsters they were.

"Titans, Go!"

Robin took out his staff and swung it at Cinderblock, creating a definite CRACK of metal against stone.

His mind, however, was not utterly focused on the battle. Even as he dodged Cinderblock's punch, he was already wondering who was behind it.

After all, there was _always_ someone behind it, right? And didn't that someone have a name that started with an "S" and ended with an "E" and had "LAD" in between?

Unfortunately, that obsessing—er, _pondering_ left Robin unprepared for Cinderblock's new trick.

He swung his staff…and Cinderblock separated into pieces.

But the staff connected only with air.

Before he could react, the pieces rammed him.

POW!

Starfire and Beast Boy teamed up against the human experiment known as Plasmus.

As the slime monster spat a wave of sizzling acid, Beast Boy turned into a gazelle and leaped out of the way, still running forward. Starfire flew above the blast and fired energy from her eyes.

Plasmus opened up and the beams just passed right through.

Beast Boy, still charging, went directly into a rhinoceros and rammed the sludgy monstrosity.

He was immediately stuck in Plasmus's sticky goo. He attempted to turn into different forms in order to break out, a bird, an elephant. Finally, he turned into a giraffe.

Bad idea. Plasmus went down his long head and consumed his entire body. Beast Boy turned to normal, too late.

Starfire, moving as fast as she could, plunged into Plasmus and came out with a messy Beast Boy.

"Dude…I am such a mess…"

"I am also unclean, Beast Boy." Starfire had some of the purple gunk on her as well.

Cyborg and Raven teamed up on Overload. Really, all they did was use robotic strength and telekinesis to fire as much water as possible on the science experiment gone horribly wrong.

Overload, computer chip showing a face of anger, dodged all the waves and lashed out with twin bursts of electricity.

Dodging the attack, Cyborg muttered to Raven. "Shouldn't he be…I dunno, talking?"

Raven responded. "He was like that the last time I fought him."

They quickly hid behind a counter to avoid another of Overload's electrical pulsates.

"Wasn't he being controlled that time?" Cyborg queried.

Raven closed her eyes… "Yes…but something is different, all the same…I sense a presence…"

Suddenly, pure electricity coalesced around Raven's cloak.

ZAP!

"Aghhhhhh!"

"Raven!" Cyborg grabbed her and shoved her away from the counter as Overload's computer chip came out from it.

"Aren't you the peeping Tom?" Cyborg said sarcastically as he fired his sonic cannon toward a sink.

The blast, perfectly angled courtesy of a half-electronic brain, sent a torrent of water at Overload's "face."

"AUGHHHH!" The water struck and Overload pulled out.

Cyborg then turned around to find Raven standing up, brushing herself off.

"You okay there Raven?"

"I'm fine. But I don't think Overload will be."

Raven lifted off the ground, eyes glowing white. With a gesture and a phrase-

"Azarath, metrion, ZINTHOS!"

-the stream of water coming out of the sink turned pure black and arced over the table.

* * *

**UNKNOWN**

It looked like a computer screen. With images on it.

It was as if there were a bunch of cameras recording the battle from different angles and perspectives, and the screen was receiving the images.

But it wasn't a computer screen. It was a psionic projection, a mental construct.

The man in the red cloak, with the black eyes with only a tiny speck of white, with the brain in the glass dome on the skull, watched the screen in silence; standing, no expression, fingers and hands pressing against one another to form a triangle shape.

He watched all the screens, but he eyed one Titan in particular.

_One Titan in particular._

Presently, another figure walked into the room.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

The man in red was silent and did not move an inch.

The figure chuckled. "So, did Kallas and Talyn prove to be too much for you?"

The man in red didn't turn his eyes from the screens as he responded. "You know why I am here."

The figure smirked. "Yes, yes, of course. All in the service…" he trailed off as he looked at the screens, expression now serious. "So what do you make of them?"

The man in red replied, voice almost flat, "In a word, pathetic. I could brainwash three of them without much effort..."

"And you couldn't do a thing with the other two." The figure chuckled again. "You know, that's the one I ended up going after." He pointed out the Titan with his hand.

The man in red nodded. "I see…"

There was silence for a moment.

The figure broke it. "So, what's the plan, Doctor?"

The man in red face contorted into a glare. He still did not move. "I _plan _to pay a visit to the Titans…then I suggest we have a meeting."

The figures face turned solemn at the word meeting. "Yes…of course. I will make the preparations…" The figure turned around and left the room.

The man in red was left alone. He stared at the screens of the pssionic projection.

But he stared at one Titan in particular.

_One Titan in particular…_

Suddenly, the floor under him grew a red circle.

The man sank through it, his eyes glowing.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The monsters were fallen.

Cinderblock? A pile of granite.

Plasmus? Back as Otto von Furth.

Overload? Only a computer chip.

The other Titans stood, panting a bit. The battle was a bit intense…but it was over.

Beast Boy broke the silence. "Guess that's that…"

Robin breathed. "Wrong."

Cyborg looked at Robin. "Think it's Slade?"

Robin muttered to himself. "We know he's still alive."

Beast Boy looked down. Raven interjected. "It makes no sense. A direct assault is not something Slade would do."

Robin turned to her. "Unless he has an ulterior motive."

"Dude," Beast Boy muttered. "How do you know Slade sent them? For all we know, they could have just decided to break out of prison and go get us all by themselves."

Robin chuckled. "Overload, Cinderblock and Plasmus making an escape? By themselves?"

_"They have more of a mind than you give them credit for, Robin."_

The Titans immediately rounded as the saw the man in red, standing behind them. They were taken aback at his appearance.

"A pleasure to meet you all." The man smiled. "I am called Psimon."

Robin held his staff out in front of him. "You sent them?"

Psimon's grin grew broader. "Indeed, I did. They did however, organize an escape plan all by themselves…they have many new tricks, those three, as I'm sure they showed you. I just had to see what those tricks could do."

The man stepped forward. "But more importantly, I had to see what _you _could do."

Raven muttered. "Be careful. This guy is a telekinetic."

"Tele-what?"

The man's face went back to a passive state. "It means that I can do…THIS!"

And at that word, his eyes glowed red as objects went flying straight at the Titans.

Cyborg punched through them.

Starfire zapped them to nothing.

Beast Boy turned into a variety of forms to both dodge and break the debris.

Robin dodged them all, rolling and twisting every which way, like an acrobat.

With a gesture, Raven stopped the objects in front of her. She hurled the objects, colored black, at the opponent.

Psimon dodged by levitating into the air.

Cyborg fired his sonic cannon. Psimon raised up a table to block it.

Starfire flew in at him, starbolts firing.

CRACK! The floor itself rose into her flight path. WHUMP!

Starfire fell to the ground, dazed.

There was a swish as Robin fired his birdarangs, in a desperate gesture.

Of course, they paused for a moment, then came right back at him. Robin quickly dodged his own attack.

Beast Boy swooped down as a pterodactyl, aiming straight for the floating figure. Suddenly, he was forced down, into the ground.

"Azarath, metrion, ZINTHOS!" Raven encased the countertop in black as she hurled it at the telekinetic.

He whipped out a hand and the projectile stayed in place.

That did not mean it wasn't going forward. Still encased in black, Raven, arms held out in front of her, attempted to win the mental tug-of-war.

Psimon's eyes glowed more fiercely as the projectile was flung at Raven at a fast speed, knocking her against the floor.

_'He's just toying with us…he's not using his full power.'_

_"Quite right.__ I am going easy on you."_

Psimon smiled again. Raven was shocked.

Starfire growled as she got up. "You are 'moving simple' on us? Are we an experiment?"

Psimon's smile remained. "Like I said before, it is a test of your power. Then again, it makes no difference to you, does it Princess?"

Starfire's jaw opened. Cyborg and a now normal Beast Boy looked up in wonder.

And Robin…

_'He can read minds! But then…'_

Psimon spoke to everyone telepathically. _"You minds are like books to me. Even the empath, even the robot cannot hide away their thoughts. It is almost too easy to read you. Indeed, I know what you are doing before you even do it!"_

The Titans suddenly found themselves routed to the floor. Psimon then psychically spoke to each of them individually, in turn, in a private conversation. The rest of the team were oblivious to the others plights…until they got their turn.

_"You know, Robin, I could tell everyone who you are, but that would serve no purpose. I am not interested in you…but of course, you will still obsess on me anyway. Like every other villain." _Robin's face contorted as Psimon continued. _"But then again, you won't blame me for your problems. No, Slade is the one with that dubious honor. To think, that over one mere man, you are willing to shut out…no, _hurt _your friends."_ Robin's mouth gritted in rage.

For Starfire. _"My dear Princess Koriand'r."_The pronunciation was flawless. _"I do apologize for bringing up bad memories…but one way or another, you are still a _Psion chenebah._ And that doesn't even begin to cover your sister. She hates you, child. She—pardon my human expression—hates your guts. Her hatred is not entirely unfounded. After all, you did steal her birthrights." _Starfire's eyes glistened with tears.

Then was Beast Boy's turn._ "Garfield, Garfield. What am I to say about you? I don't think I need to say anything. You live with your problems each day._" Beast Boy took on a feral appearance. _"I can see through you mask, Mr. Logan. I can see through you. I see that the only thing that drives you is failure. Failure. How pathetic. You should simply give up. After all, your parents gave up on you, in a sense. _Terra _gave up on you." _Beast Boy's anger, long hidden behind his humor, surged outward. "You…"

Cyborg was next. _"Victor Stone, I am going to give you a piece of information you may find surprising. Your father built this tower." _Cyborg's eyes—both his eyes—widened. _"I do not lie, Victor. Look it up for yourself if you are so driven to know. Better yet, ask Robin. He at least was smart enough to do some detective work. But that's not the point. The point is this: your father controls your life, even now. And you _still _can't get away…not that you can get away from being a machine." _Cyborg's face was still in shock, his mind in turmoil at Psimon's words.

Last and least. _"Raven, I could give you a list of your flaws. I could make you mad, just like I'm doing to your 'friends'. But we both know of your need of…how should I put this?Anger_ management._ So you will have to be content in this: I know _everything_."_

At that, Psimon released his control. Four of the Titans lunged.

And, in a matter of seconds, Psimon opened a red portal under him and sank through it. The Titans only hit empty air.

Only Raven stood still, contemplating the telekenetic's words. _"We both know of your need of…how should I put this? A_nger management_."_

_'He wasn't scared of my powers…he wasn't scared at all…it was something else…he knows something I don't know…'_

_"He doesn't know everything. He doesn't know about **me**…"_

Ignoring the figure forming in her mind, she went over to her

_('friends')_

teammates. They looked up at her.

Robin was the quickest to regain his composure. He basically summed up everything that happened. "We have a new enemy…and he probably knows us better than we know ourselves."

Beast Boy sulked.

Cyborg was still in shock. '_No…he couldn't have…Could he?'_

Starfire was crying.

And Raven just looked at them all.

Just looking…

_And not feeling._

* * *

**Prison Transport.**

Von Furth groaned.

_'Oooohhhh…'_

He had a headache.

He remembered breaking out of jail…going to the rendezvous point…finding some strange man lacking a skull…the rest was a bit of a blur.

_'I think I fought the Titans…'_

He tried to turn into his monster form…but he couldn't concentrate.

_'Hard to think…'_

He then looked around him. There was a fog everywhere, but he still could see his situation.

He was in a containment tank. Kind of like the one he had in prison.

Near him was a rubber box. He guessed Overload's chip was in there.

Cinderblock's pieces were in separate transparent cases. The rocks were trying to break out…and failed in doing so…

_'Guess we're being carted to jail…'_

Then, things got confusing.

SKREEEEEECH! The transport skidded to a halt.

CRASH! Glass shattered. There were noises.

SWISH!

CRACK!

SWISH!

CRACK!

THUNK!

VROOOOOM!

The car began to move again…

Suddenly, some time later, von Furth heard the doors open.

Black, humanoid figures took him out of the vehicle…and out of the containment pod.

Almost as a reflex, von Furth grew some clothes. Prominent was a brown coat.

Shaking his head to relieve grogginess, he looked around.

He was in the forest.

Around him were…

_'I know those things!'_

He then looked and saw Cinderblock and Overload reforming among the groups of ninja-like mens.

Then the figure appeared out of the shadows.

In a bizarre gesture, Cinderblock stood erect and gave a salute.

In a rocky voice of stone: "Sir."

"At ease, Cinderblock." The masked form of Slade looked at the three figures.

**"This better not be another trick."**

"Do not worry, Overload. I come with an offer you _can _refuse…though I don't think you will…"

Slade then turned. "We meet again Plasmus. Or is it Otto von Furth now?"

Von Furth gulped and replied. "Either will do…look, there was this guy…"

Slade cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I know. I have been on top of these things. Psimon is indeed powerful, but there are ways he can be blocked."

Slade then turned around. "Come, if you wish. We have much to speak about…things are happening, and the way they look now, they will be happening fast."

Cinderblock trudged after him. Von Furth looked at Overload.

There was a brief pause, and they followed. The Slade bots vanished with them.

_And so it begins…_

* * *

(Fade to black) 

**Postscripts: **

Another thing done. I am proud of myself.

Sorry if this is not as good as Blame…my sole purpose was to introduce Psimon as a villain. He's going to cause some trouble for the Titans later on in the story. And yes, he's a character from the comic books. Those who know of his background will probably understand where I am going with this fic. Please don't mention it in a review though. I'll mention it myself soon enough…it's not that big a secret. Oh by the way, Kallas and Talyn is also a comic-book reference: Psimon devastated those planets. And his introductory line to the Titans is pretty much taken from the comic books.

However, I do believe I have accomplished a first: Giving Overload, Cinderblock and Plasmus some actual development. (I have this bizarre obsession with making the monsters talk.) Plasmus's back story and real name is directly from the comic books, again. (His human appearance is based off his form in the show, which is based off writer David Slack, supposedly). Since Cinderblock and Overload were created for the animated series…I had to improvise a bit…although comic book fans might understand the salute.

You'll notice Psimon didn't refer to Robin by his real name. Don't worry, I'll tell you which Robin this is eventually...not that it really matters. I've also got into a bit of the characters backstories…two of which will have an impact of things to come. .

The next chapter will explain that voice in Raven's head…however, it is one of the chapters that may be altered substantially by the events in "Titans East", the Season 03 finale. This fic takes place after that pair of episodes. I expected nothing major to change when Season 03 finishes, but a view from the commercials suggests I'm going to have to retool a few chapters that are in my head.

And again special thanks to my beta-reader BlackShield. You rock!


	3. Cocytus

**IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please read "Uninvited: A Rewrite" before reading this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, or Dante's _Inferno, _blah blah blah.**

(Begin fic)

* * *

"_Some say the world will end in fire,_

_Some say in ice._

_From what I've tasted of desire_

_I hold with those who favor fire._

_  
But if it had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To know that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice."_

_-_Robert Frost, _Fire and Ice_.

"_Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December..."_

-Edgar Allen Poe, _The Raven

* * *

_

Frost.

Cold.

Ice.

Numb.

The universe will end in ice, scientists say. They say all the planets, stars, and galaxies will keep drifting until they are so far away that heat can no longer spread between them.

And then…a universal ice age…with no life at all.

Everything freezes in the end.

Everything goes cold.

_Everything goes numb…_

In Dante's _Inferno, _the last circle of the underworld is a sheet of pure ice. Those condemned to it are frozen within forever.

And as the gate says, they have no hope, for freedom or warmth. Only the icy cold of despair.

Only the ice of despair.

_Only the numbness of despair._

For that is what it is. The ultimate numbness of hope, of happiness, of what the Norse called "the stubborn will to live."

Someone that cold lives a bleak life.

_A bleak life indeed.

* * *

_

**Titans Tower, December 1st.**

"Doesn't anyone find it strange that it's snowing in California?"

"Robin, come on! Enjoy it!"

It was a white day at Jump City.

As in, it was covered in snow. A rare occurrence for a town in California. It certainly wasn't a blizzard though.

Still, all schools were canceled. And everyone dressed warmly.

The Titans, prepared for everything, wore their winter getups. Hats, coats, and scarves.

Robin, always suspicious, was peering outside the window. Mask still on, his wool winter wear were the same colors as his costume.

Starfire, wearing a purple down jacket and hat, was staring near him.

"So, this 'snow' is the same as rain, except the atmosphere is so cold that the water molecules crystallize into solid matter?"

Starfire was curious about this Earth phenomenon. Indeed, she woke them up, thinking something was possibly wrong in jump city.

Beast Boy, dressed in green and purple, was at the door.

"Dudes, c'mon! We have to go outside before it melts. When is the next chance we get to play in the snow?"

"Playing in the snow. Pointless."

Raven was reading a book. She in fact did not have any winter wear at all, and was still dressed in her trademark cloak and leotard.

"Raven, don't you want to wear something though? You'll freeze…"

Raven put down her book. "Beast Boy, I was trained in not only controlling my emotions, but also my body temperature. I don't need to wear confining coats."

"But…"

"Leave her alone, Beast Boy."

That was Cyborg. He also wasn't dressed in any winter wear. Being a half-robot, he could basically generate heat.

Raven took a short look at Cyborg's face. It was neutral. She took a glance at the other Titans.

It was only a short while after the incident with Psimon. The Titans had mostly bounced back.

Beast Boy was the first to recover, a fact which Raven was surprised at…and yet, not surprised at. The thing about Beast Boy that she only found out recently was that he kept his problems inward. He hid them with laughter and silliness. He didn't want to feel the pain of what must have been the numerous losses in his life.

Starfire had bounced back just as quickly, although Raven noticed she was being a bit more…preppy. It was almost as if she needed to convince herself she still had friends.

Robin took a little while to get back to "normal". Even now though, he was still…cautious. Guarded.

'_At least he's not jumping at his shadow.'_

And Cyborg…

Whatever Psimon said to Cyborg, it hit him hard. He spent most of the day after that battle in his room, only coming out for emergencies. The next day he was in another of his grumpy "I don't want to hear about it" moods.

Bizarrely, he still let Raven sit down next to him that day as Cyborg played video games whilst she read a book.

And now…well…he still smiled, but not as much.

She sighed and turned back to her book.

* * *

**Jump City Park**

Cyborg didn't have a good reason to smile.

After the "chat" with Psimon, Cyborg did a bit of research on Titans Tower.

The Tower was being built even before the team became an official team. When they were just some people trying to do some good in the world.

The Tower was miraculously finished in only a few weeks. The mayor of Jump City requested that the Teen Titans (or at the time, those four teenage superheroes) stay in it to protect the City.

And they accepted. But he never did try to find out who built it in the first place. The mayor said it was an anonymous benefactor.

But Cyborg found out easily enough. He pried through the internet and found the building designs to be made by S.T.A.R. Labs.

Specifically, a research scientist, Silas Stone.

Cyborg felt anger at first. _'Can't he _ever _leave me alone? Can't he let me live my life in peace? Am I still an experiment to him?'_

Now, he just felt…hollow.

And cold.

The cold of steel.

He was outside at the moment, in the park with the other Titans. Even Raven was there, pushed into it by an eager Beast Boy. She was just sitting down by a tree, as usual.

He looked around him, seeing everything with one robotic eye and a half-electronic brain.

And a snowball plowed into his head.

"Gotcha Cyborg!"

Cyborg turned around and looked at Beast Boy. Slowly, a small smile came to his face.

He learned to accept being a robot. He'll learn to accept this too.

After all, life goes on.

He made a snowball of his own and threw it at the shape shifting sprite.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Starfire was incredulous at the activities of the others in the park.

"Robin! Why are these people falling to the ground and waving their arms?"

Robin smiled. _'Good old Starfire.' _"They're making snow angels. Watch.

With expert precision, he fell, waved his arms, and got up, all without any more marks in the snow than necessary.

Starfire was dazzled at the imprint of Robin with wings. "It's beautiful…"" She turned to the dark Titan, sitting under the tree. "Raven! Perhaps you would like to make an angel of snow yourself?"

'_Snow angels…me making a snow angel. That's a laugh.'_

"_What laugh?"_

Raven was bit jolted. Not by the voice…she knew it was the voice of her mind, or one of her emotions. It was the coldness of that voice.

"Raven?"

Starfire broke Raven out of her shocked state. Regaining her composure: "No."

"But…" "No."

Starfire looked at Raven sadly…then proceed to make a snow angel of her own.

Raven sighed. _'Silly Starfire.'_

"_At least she can be silly."_

The cold voice again. Raven was suddenly gripped with a small fright. _'It can't be…can it?'_

Raven hoped for a laugh, for anything at all. But there was only silence in her mind.

'_I need the mirror…this can't be what I think it is…don't let it be out, please …'_

RUMBLE RUMBLE. The ground shook.

Raven got up. The other Titans got into position.

RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE THWOP Snow fell from trees. "AHHHHHH!" People ran screaming.

Suddenly, what looked like a giant white icicle rose up from the ground. It opened up, revealing a humanoid figure with eye sockets and an icy tiger-like mouth. There were spikes all over its body, looking for all the world as giant killer snowflakes. It was a frozen icy sculpture.

And then the eyes glowed red as the beast began to move. "ROARRRRR!"

The Titans almost immediately were in their normal costumes, winter wear discarded. "Titans, go!"

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Robin threw explosive disks. After all, the fiery explosion would melt a creature made of ice.

The monster grabbed the projectile in mid air with one of its spiked arms. When it opened its hand, the disk fell to the ground and broke to pieces: it froze before it could explode.

The monster was immediately hit with a blue sonic cannon blast. The monster roared again as shards of it broke off. It was then charged by a green T-Rex.

The monster caught it in mid-charge and threw it at an airborne Starfire, who couldn't get away in time. Beast Boy turned back to normal before they hit the ground with a shower of frost.

With a wave of its hand, the ice creature fired a blast of winter wind at Robin and Cyborg. WHOOSH! They were both sent tumbling.

"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!"

Raven picked up various trees and threw them directly at the creature. It batted them away with its huge hands.

Raven then sent a blast of dark-lightning at the beast. It howled in pain and fell on its knees.

Raven flew closer to it, hands glowing with energy…

FWOOOOW! The monster looked up and breathed a breath of pure ice and Raven.

'_So cold!'_

Raven was knocked backwards. The monster then got up. "ROAAAR!"

"Raven!" The team was immediately at her side.

She was unconscious, and her skin was freezing to the touch. It had a bluish tint in it, as well.

Robin issued the command "Cyborg, Beast Boy, get her to the Tower. Starfire and I will handle this."

Cyborg nodded at leapt up on the now pterodactyl Beast Boy. He immediately flew in the direction of their base.

Starfire and Robin turned to face the icy monster.

'_So cold…'_

'_So…very cold…'

* * *

_

**Raven's Mind.**

It was all very cold at first. She remembered the monster breathing pure ice on her.

Then suddenly she was in her head.

At least, she thought she was in her head.

She hadn't visited this place in a while.

It was a frozen cavern entirely made out of ice. All of it was ice. From the ceiling to the floor.

_And the floor had people in it._

Yes…people. Everyone that Raven ever felt toward, whether that feeling was love, friendship, or hate, they were all there, frozen forever in the ice, their faces twisted in silent screams of pain.

Raven looked away. She couldn't bear to see that horrible sight...

Looking up at the ceiling was not good, since it just reflected the frozen forms below. She turned around.

She knew what to expect, but even then she was frightened.

It was another mental image of her father. He was frozen in the ice all the way to his upper torso, his arms and legs under the ice. He was looking less demonic than he was the last time she "saw" him.

In fact, this image of her father, was crying, weeping tears of pain that froze when the hit the ground.

And he was chewing something in his mouth.

_'Who is it? My friends? Azar? Terra?'_

_'Mother?'_

"_Raven._"

The voice was dead. It was emotionless. It was pure ice.

Raven turned around. She was scared at what she saw…but not surprised…oh yes…not surprised at all.

Beast Boy and Cyborg did not meet _all_ of Raven's emotions. There was one emotion in particular, that she did not want them to meet. In some ways, it was worse than red-cloaked Rage.

The other half of her demon side. She thought she sealed it away a long time ago…but to quote a Steven King story: "Sometimes they come back."

Her cloak was a pure black. It had those fearsome four red eyes. But these eyes weren't filled with anger. They were empty. Devoid of emotion, of love, of warmth. There was only ice in those eyes.

Raven named the emotion. "Despair."

* * *

**Titans Tower**

"Will she be okay?"

There were at the infirmary, once again. And Raven was lying on the cot, once again.

But this time she wasn't floating. She was flat on the ground. She was covered with heavy blankets.

Cyborg looked at the charts his expression, his voice and expression neutral. "All of her vital signs are normal…except her temperature is fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Half of a human's normal body temperature."

A chill went down Beast Boy's spine. "She's not going to…"

"Like I said, everything looks normal. It's as if her body has suddenly started to function normally at cold temperatures."

Beast Boy understood what Cyborg was saying. He had been enough animals to know that not all living things have a temperature of 98.5. "Then aren't we giving her too many blankets? I mean, if that's her normal temperature…"

And Cyborg blew up. "Did I SAY that was her normal temperature! Does it LOOK like she's okay! Anything can be happening to Raven and **all you can do is make STUPID JOKES!"**

And some of that anger Beast Boy kept inside of him got out. "DO YOU THINK I'M JOKING! **Dude! I'm just trying to help!"**

They glared at each other for an instant longer…before realizing what they were doing. Their expression softened.

"Look…BB, I'm sorry…it's just…"

"Things just keep going from bad worse…I know what you mean."

They turned to look at Raven.

"Hey…how about I make her some herbal tea?"

Cyborg was a bit shocked. "You know how to make herbal tea?"

"Hey, it's vegetarian!" Beast Boy had the uncanny ability to make dark things brighter. He ran out of the room and into the kitchen.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Hmm…let's see…"

Beast Boy found the packets and had already set up the kettle of hot water. But before he could turn the stove on, he remembered something.

"Aw man! I forgot how hot the tea should be!"

"I think it should be freezing."

Beast Boy had no time to turn around as everything suddenly turned very, very, cold.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Cyborg looked to Raven and then looked back to the chart again. He then heard footsteps.

"Beast Boy?"

He turned around to see Beast Boy, curled up in the fetal position, slide across the floor.

"Beast Boy!" He knelt down and put a hand on the green Titan.

"S-so…cuh-cold…"

And then Cyborg looked up at the figure behind Beast Boy.

The man wore a long white robe, with a line of yellow down the middle. Some black lines were around the sleeves and the lower portion of the robe.

The very top was a yellow bordered black folded over diamond with a bizarre inhuman head design on it. It looked like it had tentacles coming from its nose, its horns were bent inward, and two black eyes were prominent on the design. The robe ended in a yellow circle, and a line of black was around the neck. Around his hands were reddish silvery gloves.

The face was young, but old at the same time. Piercing, almost judgmental, blue eyes contrasted with white hair dressed in three points. The man's face was stern his demeanor almost sinister.

Cyborg knew the man very well.

Brother Blood smiled. "Hello Cyborg. Nice weather we're having."

* * *

**Raven's Mind**

"How did you escape?"

Raven never took her eyes of the black-clad emotion.

Despair answered, her voice having an almost haunting similarity to her father's.

"_You have confused me with Rage. Rage comes quickly, and often passes quickly, but I am slow and patient. I move like a glacier, slowly, but silently. Even after you locked me in this icy pit, I have been freeing myself. For you cannot distance yourself from Despair. Nor can you tell when it sneaks up on you…not until your heart becomes gripped by ice, until you realize the truth, that life is a mistake. And the truth is not something that easy to get rid of_"

During this lecture, Despair had no change in tone, no change in inflection. Just the bitter apathy of her cold voice.

Raven responded. "Life is not a mistake. What you say is not the truth." Her voice was monotone, but it still held more emotion than the four-eyed hooded figure.

Despair continued. "_You think that by believing in the lie known as 'friendship' you will find peace with yourself. You will find yourself away from me. But your ignorance can't last forever. Indeed, it is already going away. Already, you have had three lessons on the truth of 'friendship', that no one cares for other, only for themselves._"

Despair raised a hand to the side to indicate the ice patch there. Suddenly, an image played.

_The Titans were shocked. _

_There in front of them was their leader. But now he was working for his own enemy. His vibrant red costume was dropped for a cold metallic one. His noble "R" was replaced by a sinister "S" And Raven saw a bizarre reflection of what she could be…_

The image shifted.

_The blond smiled as Raven was suddenly pulled down into the abyss, as she could only gasp for air once before the waters consumed her. And she was filled with hate for this traitor…this betrayer…and yet Raven wondered what would happen if she was in this girl's shoes, if she was offered freedom…_

And the image shifted once more.

_The dragon laughed manically as he clutched Raven in a talon._

_The saying "Like mother, like daughter" was never more true at this moment._

_It is funny how history repeats itself. _

_It was not funny for Raven, who was tricked again. Who was betrayed again. Except this time, she made the same mistakes that led to the curse of her existence._

_And the girl was doing everything she could to keep that curse in control._

"_And you can never keep it in control._" The image disappeared, and Despair spoke once more, four eyes full of nothingness. "_Even as you subdued Rage, Despair crept up on you. And now there is no escaping the ice_."

Raven showed no outward disturbance at these memories, though indeed, her peace of mind was already in more danger than normal. Raven concentrated on her words. "You can't hurt me. You may have crept up slowly, but you have given me time to get used to you. I don't feel cold."

"_You don't feel cold,_" droned Despair "_because I will it_."

And the black emotion waved her hand in a gesture.

And…

'_It's so cold it's so cold how can it be so cold? so numb so ice all ice all depression all ice all despair nothingness rules all it is all nothing no feelings never feelings condemned to cold to ice to despair to pain to death…'_

And she sunk down into the ice, hunched over, arms and cloak wrapped around her in a futile gesture for warmth.

And Despair did not even give a smile of satisfaction. There was just that cold emotionless look as Raven went down down down…into the pit of ice.

Just before Raven was buried fully, Despair had one last phrase. "_Despair shall consume you. Despair has consumed you_."

* * *

**The Park**

The monster roared as he threw another wave of cold wind- WOOOSH- at the Boy Wonder and the alien princess.

Robin dodged the attacked, at sent a grappling hook into the monster. Using it to gain leverage, he leaped over the monster and threw a disk into its shoulder.

A new kind of disk

A flame throwing disk.

A fire immediately started on the monsters shoulder. "GUH-OWWWWW!" It screamed in pain.

"Starfire, now!"

She then flew Starbolt after Starbolt after eye beam after eye beam at the fire on the monster.

The fire grew stronger with each blast fired into it. It began to cover more of the monster as it put out steam!

"GWAHHHHHH!"

SIZZLE! SWISH!

The monster began to melt into a white puddle. Red energy sparkled from its body as it lost his cohesion and began to drip.

Eventually the eyes faded out…and the monster broke into pieces.

The fire then went out, killed by the very water it helped to melt.

Starfire flew to Robin. "We must go check on Raven! She could still be hurt.

She was stopped by a sudden glow in the jewels of her armbands.

Robin took out his communicator. "It's from Cyborg…" His somewhat gloomy voice then became urgent. He looked up. "There's an emergency at the Tower!"

Starfire gasped.

Robin began to run. "We have to get there; the others could be in danger!"

* * *

**Titans Tower**

Cyborg extended his sonic cannon while activating his emergency call button. "How did you get here?" he growled.

Brother Blood's smile became broader. "Well, the door was unlocked, so I felt I should stop here and see how things are going."

He then looked down. "Your friend, however, does seem to be cold-blooded."

Cyborg growled. "How did you escape from jail? The Titans East saw you in prison yesterday!"

"Ah, but you see Cyborg, that wasn't _exactly _me."

Cyborg suddenly understood. "Another illusion, Brother?"

"Oh, Cyborg…I wouldn't call them illusions…I call them acts. Acts in a brilliant and beautiful play."

Brother Blood closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He then opened them again and continued. "You know Cyborg, everything that has happened has really all been foreshadowing in this wonderful play. And I mean _everything._ But at last, we have reached the final act. And this play will reach its grand climax. A very sad tragedy…or a happy comedy, if you look at it my way."

"Your way." Cyborg spat. "What is your way? Do you see brainwashing teenagers, playing mind games, and causing destruction **_fun?_**"

Brother Blood said presently. "The first two? Yes. But causing destruction isn't fun. It is my sacred duty, as a Brother Blood." His tone immediately became…patriotic, for lack of a better word.

"There's MORE of you!" Even in seeing through Blood, he didn't see that.

The priest laughed again. "Brother Blood is not a name, Cyborg. It is a title. And I am the one that bears it, and I am the one that leads the beloved institution that my family founded: the esteemed Church of Blood."

'_So that's where he came from.'_ Cyborg thought. _'Arrogant jerk.'_

Brother Blood continued. "You would have been an important member in my little flock, had you stayed with me. I could have given you your humanity, Stone, and more besides…that _is_ your name, correct? Victor Stone?"

A bit of shock flashed through Cyborg's face only to calm down into determination. "You would only make me _think_ I had my humanity. No…you couldn't even do that."

Brother Blood gave a part smirk, part scowl. "Oh yes…_that. _It doesn't really matter in the end."

Brother Blood then raised his red and silver gloved hands and looked up to the sky. "The play will go on."

In that instant, Cyborg fired.

Brother Blood reacted with his red barrier, sending the projectile off to the side. Cyborg then rolled over in the other direction, firing another blast, which Brother Blood promptly dodged.

"Tsk tsk Cyborg. You really need to get an upgrade on your systems." Brother Blood then fired a stream of crimson snowflakes. Cyborg barely got out of the way as it froze the very ground where he was.

Cyborg then pounced on Brother Blood, knocking him to the ground. Cyborg growled a bit before he was pulled off by dual blasts of red lightning from the wicked priest's hands.

They stood up, facing each other off again. Silence.

Then Brother Blood shot his arm at Cyborg like a rocket.

'_What the heck?'_

He leapt out of the way as the rocket powered arm returned to Brother Blood's sleeve.

Cyborg got up and stared incredulously.

Brother Blood chuckled and lowered both his sleeves; those gloves of his weren't gloves

They were metallic claws, connected to metal arms with red circuitry separated by silver lines. A ridge of spikes was on the top of the arm.

"You see Cyborg; I have given _myself _some upgrades." His smile turned cruel. "Courtesy of your blueprints."

Cyborg gave a roar as he charged.

Brother Blood's eyes glowed red as his metal claw charged with red energy. He dodged Cyborg's fist and struck out with it.

Cyborg dodged just in time as the claw only grazed part of his arm, scraping off some of the metal.

Cyborg unleashed a kick that managed to send Blood into the air. He landed on his feet a distance away, charged up both his hands, and unleashed a narrow sharp crest of energy.

Cyborg ducked as the wave sliced through part of the Tower walls, letting the cold air in.

Brother Blood only laughed.

"You actually think you can defeat me Cyborg? When my powers far outstrip your own?"

Cyborg then did something unexpected. He smiled.

"I can't beat you _alone…_"

At that moment Robin leapt up with his staff.

CRACKLE! At the last second Brother Blood turned around and put up his barrier, blocking the attack. He then expertly dodged the waves of green flying at him, leaping an inhuman height over Cyborg's head.

The priest surveyed the scene. "Well well well, what do we have here? Robin the Boy Wonder and Starfire of Tamaran. Marvelous. I hope my icy friend didn't give you too much trouble…"

Comprehension flared in Robin's eyes. "This was a trap."

Brother Blood gave a grin. "Like I told Cyborg, I prefer the word 'act'…and speaking of which…" he then pointed a hand to Raven.

The dark girl rose up from the bed, almost like a zombie arising from the dead. Her face was expressionless as she put up her hood.

And then she opened her eyes.

_Her four red eyes._

"Well Cyborg, it's been fun," Brother Blood said agreeably "I'll see you again if you survive." He disappeared in a flash of red.

And at that moment, the four eyed Raven fired a bolt of dark energy at the Titans.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

ZAP! CRASH! STOMP STOMP STOMP.

The Titan's retreated down to the basement, carrying the frozen Beast Boy with them.

Or at least three of them were. Raven was slowly gliding after them, hands glowing with dark energy.

Robin was the first to speak. "Raven, control yourself!"

The Titan in question made no response other than to pick up crates and throw them at the Boy Wonder.

Robin dodged with a back flip. Cyborg then tried to reach her next. "Calm down Raven!"

Again, she was silent, creating a series of shadowy cutters. Cyborg hit the deck as they whizzed over his head.

Starfire then rose, her face and voice pleading. "Please listen to us Raven! We are your friends!"

And then she replied in a dead, hollow voice. "_I don't have any 'friends.'_" Even though he was half-frozen, Beast Boy perked up at that statement.

Raven then continued. _"There is no such thing as friendship. It is but a lie, in the flaw that is 'life'. The lie must be replaced with truth, and the error must be corrected."_

The Titans were horrified at Raven's words. Starfire knew all too well what was going on, from the talk she and Raven had, in what was like a million years ago, but Cyborg was confused, and Robin even more so.

'_Her despair has overtaken her!' _Starfire.

'_She's not angry…' _Cyborg.

'_She never told me she could lose her **sanity!**' _Robin.

Raven then raised her hands, and created a ball of pure dark energy.

The Titans scattered, Cyborg holding Beast Boy, as she threw it, the energy it released creating a big black explosion that sent the Titans flying.

Cyborg hit the ground from Raven's assault.

"…Rrraven…"

Cyborg looked at his semi-frozen friend. "Beast Boy…"

"Suh-Cyborg….listen…Rrraven isss fuh-frozennn …"

An explosion was then heard from the other side of the room. Raven was fighting Robin and Starfire.

"Sheee'sss…cuh-cuh-cold…ssoo cold…ssoo numb…"

Cyborg bent down to listen closer.

"Give her war-warmth, Cyborg." His teeth began to chatter. "Give her some wuh-wuh-warmthhhh…"

He then just chattered his teeth and began to shiver.

'_Warmth…me giving warmth. That's a laugh.'_

Steel, after all, has the property of conducting away heat.

'_I have to try…'_

With and effort he got up and called out. "Raven!"

With a swish of her cloak, the four-eyed girl turned around.

Cyborg then spoke quietly. "Life isn't a mistake, Raven."

She only stared at him and then spoke. "_Life isn't a mistake? If I could feel, I would be laughing right now. Life is a mistake. It is the biggest error ever created. It is only painful and cold, and yet people are so attached to it that they want to go on forever, clinging to their pain._" There was a pause.

"_I thought perhaps you would understand Cyborg. You are already half-dead._"

That was a slap to Cyborg. He was silent, struggling to control his anger.

She

_(It)_

spoke again.

"_Then again, you are not as dead as I am. The only reason I do not pull myself into death is because it would be wrong for me to do so. Even if I cannot feel, I cannot just sit by and watch others suffer with the endless agony of life._"

And Cyborg countered. "Raven, maybe life isn't fair. And maybe the world doesn't care. But that doesn't mean it's a mistake! There may be bad moments, but there are good ones! There is happiness…" He then remembered what Beast Boy said. "There is warmth."

"_Happiness? Warmth? Illusions. Delusions. Created by the mind to keep people existing. But I know the truth. I know there is no warmth. There is only ice. No-one cares in the end. No-one at all."_

She raised her hand, crackling with dark energy.

Cyborg never really understood what came over him them. He felt almost as if he was pushed to do it…a theory that eventually became more plausible.

He grabbed her hand with his own. Gritting against the pain, he used his other hand to push a button on his arm.

Raven's face was still emotionless at first.

Then slowly…her features changed.

The eyes slowly widened, the mouth slowly opened, as the feeling came to her.

'_Warmth…'_

Cyborg simply increased the temperature of his hands.

It was almost like ice melting, as she slowly put her hand down, as her eyes began to close.

'_So warm…'_

The Titans watched in silence, as Raven kneeled down…

* * *

She felt it in her mind. 

The touch.

The warmth.

Not her mother's touch…but a touch all the same.

And then she was pulled from the ice, feeling immediately coming into herself, her body no longer feeling numb.

She sensed two presences in the room. As her vision began to clear, she made them out.

They were two of her emotions. The first wore a lavender cloak. As always, she wore a mysterious smile, as if she knew something you didn't. That emotion was Love, the counterpart to Rage.

The other emotion wore a cloak of sky blue, almost white in its color. Her smile was genuine, a happy smile, the smile of a person who had just discovered happiness.

The emotion was Hope.

They spoke nothing. There were no words to say. Raven added her own smile to her emotions.

And then they vanished.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

At the center of her mind, the black cloaked, four eyed emotion of Despair stood, like a bird waiting anxiously for its prey.

She…or it, whichever you prefer, had no idea of these goings on. Despair, after all, never looks at the good things. It only sees the bad.

So it was utterly surprised when the real Raven fired a stream of dark energy at it.

It just barely dodged the blast and looked at the true self.

"_You got out._" It was a statement, not a question. It fired a bolt of its own black energy, blacker than even Raven's if such a thing was possible.

_Now let me interrupt Reader, to tell you that the blackness of despair is not really black at all. It is the color of nothingness, the color of the Void. Black absorbs color, and white reflects color, but the Void destroys color. And so when a person sees the Void, he sees black…because it is the brain's interpretation of what the eye sees, a 'color' that cannot be described, at least by humans. _

A lavender light rose up and blocked the wave of despair.

"I had some help." Raven murmured as Love, smiling her mother's smile, appeared beside her.

Despair looked at the emotion darkly…darkly for despair anyway.

Then Hope appeared, cloak flying, eyes glowing, and she fired radiant streams of sky blue.

Despair was knocked backwards again, into a cliff under the black sky of Raven's mind.

It looked up from a sitting position to the real Raven.

"You will go back to where you belong."

"_Nevermore._"

Raven allowed a small smile to appear on her face at the reference, and then her eyes glowed white as she consumed Despair in black energy.

Despair gritted its teeth, it tried to break free of its bonds, but it never made a sound as it disappeared into 'black' energy and entered Raven.

Raven gritted her teeth as the energy pulsed through her, but then it was gone.

And she knew Despair was back in the ice.

And she opened her eyes.

* * *

She viewed the surroundings around her. 

She was in the basement of Titans Tower, and it looked like a small battle took place. Not like a tornado, but the place was disorganized.

Cyborg was looking at her. He offered his hand. "Raven…you okay?"

She nodded as she took it and got up, taking off her hood. She looked around herself.

"Raven!" That was Starfire. "Thank X'hal you are better!"

"Is everything under control, Raven?" Robin spoke in a concerned tone.

"I need to meditate for a bit…but yes…where's Beast Boy?"

"Right here."

Hugging himself, Beast Boy moved closer to Raven and fell over. Starfire quickly caught him.

Raven's face betrayed some fear. "Beast Boy…did I…?"

"No." Cyborg was gruff. "It was Brother Blood. He was in the Tower."

Raven looked at Cyborg, then at Beast Boy, and then nodded. "Beast Boy…are you okay?"

He managed to pull of a smile. "Nothing some hot chocolate won't fix…but just in case…" Beast Boy then turned into a sea lion, complete with blubber.

Raven managed to give a smile, as she floated into her meditation position, floating in the air, knees crossed.

"Um…Raven?"

"Shouldn't you be in your room?" Starfire and Robin were both a bit flabbergasted.

"Not now…I need to meditate…but I need to know that I'm not alone…my friends…can you please stay? Just…for a little bit?"

The Titans nodded as one as Raven began her mantra.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

* * *

**UNKNOWN**

A flash of red light, and Brother Blood was back in his lair.

The other figure in the room didn't turn around. "I trust the mission was a success?"

"If by 'a success' you mean I planted the surprise, then yes, it was." Brother Blood smiled wickedly.

* * *

(Fade to black) 

**Postscripts: **

And yes, I have finished this chapter. With all of the side projects I'm writing as well, (which you may not see for a while) I think I'm doing more fanfiction writing than I ever did.

I would like to acknowledge Dante's _Inferno _for providing the allusions to that work.

As you may guess, the "_Let me interrupt you, Reader" _paragraph is my homage to Blackshield, who I must thank for becoming my beta-reader.

Despair, the black cloaked emotion, is my own little idea I had in mind for awhile now. And of course, Despair's opposite is Hope…so yeah.

Love is the name I give to that lavender cloaked emotion from the episode "Nevermore". Hey, Dante altered his sources to fit his works, and so can I!

I am now in even more competition than I was before. Not only must this fic stand against "These Black Eyes" by Post, but I also must compete against the actual show! Oh well.

**Post 2/16/05: **This chapter was written before either part of "Titans East" premiered, and well before I wrote "Uninvited: A Rewrite". So I ended up changing something to fit in with "Uninvited", but I apologize if for some reason there are any inconsistencies. The whole winter theme comes from this being written in November or December; I forget which.

I did manage to give Brother Blood _some_ robotic implants, since I did enjoy those slashing moves he performed. Now that I think about it, I am reminded of the character Jax from Mortal Kombat, who also has metal arms. My mind scares me sometimes.

Next chapter will be a bit more lighthearted. Bumblebee will make an appearance, cameos galore of other characters, and that's right, ANOTHER villain from the comics.

And the chapter after that…well, let's just say that chapter is the reason why this fic gets it's name. In some ways, it'll be the turning point.

Yeah…I can't wait to write it.

Please review so I know you've read this.


	4. One Thing Leads to Another

**My apologies for being late.**** This chapter took some motivation to write.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own too much. I own the interpretations of a few characters I introduce, but those characters are owned by DC Comics. **

(Begin fic)

* * *

**A few days ago…**

_She leaped up into the air._

_Silver, lined tentacles reached after up.s_

_She turned around and threw a trio of blue crystals. The tentacles were cut in half._

_She landed as the lasers reached out from the yellow walls. With a raise of her hand, a blue crystal wall appeared, like a wavy mirage._

_She quickly ran around the wall, and as it faded out of existence she created a large weapon within in her hands._

_SMASH! The laser cannons were bashed right out of their sockets._

_The weapon disappeared as she struck a pose, one hand on her hip, the other leaning against the wall. An eyebrow was raised, almost inquisitively. She wore a closed smile._

_As the students watched, one got ready to cheer._

_The Headmaster's Voice boomed out. "I would like to welcome our new student…"

* * *

_

**Jump City Mall, Present.**

"C'mon, girl, there has to be SOME store you like."

Raven responded with a sigh. "I told you, it's pointless."

The speaker was an African-American with brown-black eyes. Her black hair was dressed with a style that some people compared to Mickey Mouse. Of course, those people generally did not live long. She wore a shirt with alternating yellow and black stripes; yellow bracelets; black pants going down to the feet; and a yellow belt with a big B on it. Holstered in that belt was a pair of silver-force laser guns, which she affectionately called "her stingers."

Bumblebee, leader of Teen Titans East, was invited to the "mall of shopping" by Starfire. So, putting Aqualad in charge until she came back (Speedy in charge? Don't be ridiculous!), she took the trip to Jump City—transportation courtesy of Más y Menos.

And Raven—to her chagrin—was dragged along.

At the moment, Starfire was floating over to the two girls, her purchases in hand.

"I am ready to leave, my friends!"

"Good. Now let's see if we can get Goth Girl here to buy something."

"I'm not Goth."

"Suuuure you aren't."

Raven groaned. Bumblebee annoyed her to no end. She silently thanked Azar that they weren't on the same team.

"Please, Raven." Starfire spoke up, her voice pleading: "Don't you wish to shop at your favorite dark and… well… _scary_ store?" She then pointed.

Raven let herself enjoy a satisfied smile. _'Ah, Hot Topic.'_

The girls looked at the store, and the red letters making up the sign.

Bumblebee muttered. "That store was thought up by a forty-year-old mom."

Raven nodded. "I know."

She walked into it.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Oof!"

Beast Boy had accidentally bumped into a redhead with black sunglasses, blue jeans, and a brown leather jacket.

Of course, Beast Boy was just recovering from the hypnosis of the new CR portable gaming system.

"Heh heh… sorry."

The boy smiled, nodded, and walked off in the other direction. Meanwhile, Beast Boy headed toward his location… the Arcade.

And of course, there they were: Robin and Cyborg, playing the latest racing game—_Drivin' Reality. _

"In your face Robin!"

Cyborg had just passed Robin.

Robin only smirked as he popped a wheelie on the car and drove to first.

"In _your _face, Cyborg."

"I play winner, guys!" Beast Boy smiled as he took out his quarters.

Cyborg chuckled. "That might take a…"

The interesting thing about being part electronic is that you get a sixth sense of sorts; when something happens that your systems can detect, you get this instant knowledge about exactly what it is.

That is exactly what happened as Cyborg sensed a bright pulsation of energy.

"_Victory!_" Cyborg's hesitation cost him the race.

"Ooh, ooh, my turn!" Beast Boy was already trying to squirm in the car seat, pushing Cyborg out if the way.

Cyborg, utterly ignoring Beast Boy, looked down at his arm monitor. "Be back in a sec."

He put it down and got up off the seat, causing Beat Boy to overbalance and fall down on it.

"Dude!"

Cyborg utterly ignored him as walked along.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

She sensed it. Right after she… well… bought some clothes.

She told the other two to go on without her. They whined a bit, but she promised she come back.

Magic— Strange magic; acting as a beacon to anyone who could sense it.

And she felt she had to seek it out.

She stood in a darkened section of the mall, near an empty store with a chain fence already in place.

"Hey."

She turned around to look at the face of Cyborg.

"Hey," she murmured.

"I guess you sensed something?"

She nodded.

He moved forward and looked at his monitor again. "Whatever it is, it's pretty big," he observed.

"Shouldn't we call the others?"

Cyborg muttered, "That could be what they want."

"Guess we'll just have to find out for ourselves."

She took Cyborg's hand and projected her soul-self, passing straight through the wall.

It was dark.

Very dark.

The soul-self dissipated in the dark room.

"Next, time, warn me before you do that."

Raven smirked in response.

FLASH! A giant white light turned on.

CLANK! A metal wall came up through the floor.

Raven muttered, "Trap. You are warned, Cyborg."

She took his hand and projected her soul-self again.

The giant Raven hurled toward the wall… CLANK! Bounced off it.

The bird then tried to go through the other walls, but each was as tangible to the soul-self as the first one.

"Hee hee hee! The walls are enchanted. You're stuck here with me!"

The soul-self dissipated as Raven and Cyborg searched for the source of the childish, female voice.

She stepped into the light.

Blue. That was the first impression of this girl. All dark, midnight blue. Cuffs, and dark boots. A blue leather jacket, closed, with lighter blue bumps on the forearms of it; leading to bracelets of the same color. Gloves, which ended at the knuckles of her fingers. A light blue belt-buckle separating the top of the uniform from the bottom. An aquamarine jewel resting on her neck.

She gave the impression of a biker girl with the closed leather jacket. She certainly looked like one. Red hair covered the ears as black eyes peered at the two. One eyebrow was raised, inquisitively.

Then, in an expression that ran contrary to her appearance, she gave a big, closed-eyes smile. "Hi!"

Cyborg's face of determination was replaced by shock. "Erm… hello?"

Raven breathed, "Who are you?"

"Tee hee!" She giggled, putting her hand over her mouth. "Cyborg and Raven, right? I'm Shimmer."

Raven muttered: "It's an act, Cyborg. She's not some innocent little kid."

Her face turned annoyed. "Oh, c'mon! I just wanted to play!" Her smirk turned evil as she raised her empty hand.

The air itself shimmered; three small blue silver crystals came into being.

Three sharp, silver crystals.

She threw them.

The two leaped out of the way as the crystals embedded into the wall.

Cyborg rolled and fired his cannon.

Shimmer raised her hand.

A translucent, bluish crystal wall came into being. The attack was utterly blocked.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven fired black energies into the floor, ripping large chunks off the ground and throwing them at the opponent.

Shimmer smiled, closed her eyes and stretched out her hands in front of her as the wall she created disappeared.

Nothing happened at first. Surrounded by black, the objects approached rapidly.

Then, the chunks shimmered out of existence; leaving only the black energies.

The black energies promptly dissipated as Raven was thrown off her mental balance. She shook her head a bit to clear it.

She opened her eyes to see Shimmer, running towards her.

The transmuter positioned her hands as if she was clutching an invisible pommel.

And then it appeared. Crystalline blue.

Connected to what could only be called a giant hammer.

"Hah!" Leaping in the air, she brought it down on Raven.

BANG! The hammer collided against Raven's dark shield.

Focusing her energies, Raven turned the shield into a blast of telekinetic shadow energy.

"Oof!" Shimmer was knocked up against the wall, the hammer falling out of her hands and fading out of existence.

Cyborg ran forward as she got up, ready to give the transmuter a rushing tackle.

She quickly jumped out of the way of his charge… and stayed in the air.

_'She can fly?'_

Even as she thought it, Raven knew it was wrong. She saw the swirling gray misty platform that appeared under her feet.

She wasn't flying. She was quite literally walking on a cloud… or, at least, air.

Shimmer smirked; the girlish childishness, again. Her look was purely happy determination.

The crystals appeared in her hands again, and she started to throw them in all directions.

Raven barely found an opening through the sheer number of projectiles.

Cyborg retaliated with his cannon aimed at the transmuter, which obliterated the blue crystals.

Shimmer efficiently created another wall to block the attack.

She giggled again, the girlishness coming back. "This is fun!"

Cyborg looked up at her. _'Is she insane?'_

She created another set of crystals… and suddenly whisked away a fly that landed on her nose.

A _green _fly.

_'BB?'_

Cyborg then saw the other 'insect' coming in from Shimmer's side.

WHAM! Shimmer was thrown off her platform.

Bumblebee returned to her normal size; Beast Boy took on his human-elfish form.

"Need help?" the former inquired.

Cyborg and Raven smirked.

"Owwww! No fair!" Shimmer got up, rubbing her cheek, looking like a kid who just lost a game.

Cyborg looked up. "Bee, do you know this girl?"

She shrugged.

Raven looked at Beast Boy quizzically. "How did you know we were in danger?"

Beast Boy grinned sheepishly. "Actually, I was looking for extra tokens… and I saw your signals were behind a wall."

Raven sighed and shook her head. "Did you contact the others?"

She was answered by a loud explosion as Robin and Starfire stepped into view. Shimmer looked shocked, her jaw opened.

He smirked. "Booyah."

"That's MY line!" Cyborg was smiling, though.

"Well, you _did_ get to say 'Titans go'…"

"Ahem…"

All eyes turned toward Shimmer.

"I can't fight you like _this_!"

"Too bad" said Robin. "This is the only chance you get."

She looked hurt. "You know, my little brother won't like this."

Robin shook his head. "That has got to be the dumbest excuse I ever—OOF!"

Something large and enormous plowed right into Robin.

_'Mammoth!'_

Shimmer smiled wickedly as, behind her, pink lines of energy spread out along the ground while small missiles arced in the air.

The projectiles connected just in front of the remaining Titans.

**BOOM!**

They were sent flying out of the store and into the main mall. People scattered.

Robin got up and shook his head. "Everyone okay?"

There were nods from the others.

Starfire pointed. "I fear we may not be okay for long!"

Out of the smoke arose four figures.

The first was humanoid and very well muscled. Long brown hair trailed down from behind his head, with dreadlocks down the front sides, the ears poking out from under them. Wearing a small goatee on his chin, he gave a look that told you he meant business. He wore a mostly black uniform with no sleeves. The arm holes were yellow, with bumps on them, and a yellow line shaped like a "V' with its being pulled downward. He wore spiked yellow bracelets, and yellow footwear that was absolutely featureless except for three ridges jutting out from the front. To his right was Shimmer.

To his left was almost his polar opposite. A bald kid of obviously short stature, his eyes were covered by green goggles. Wearing a full-blown body suit of green, it had pockets along both forearms and right above the hip. A wire ran down from one shoulder, ending with what looked like a video game controller with three green narrow buttons on his hands. Three similar buttons were on his chest, in a square of silver. Two more silver patches were right in the center of hands. The heels, toes, and bottoms of his shoes were all silver. He was floating in the air, as from his back came two silver blocks, with vents on top, that functioned as jet rockets. From behind him, you would see them connected to a silver backpack, connected to the controller he held. It was emblazoned with a green "G" on a black circle. His childish face was some combination of a prankster having just pulled off an amazing joke andkiddish hatred.

Finally, to the very right came the other girl. The first noticeable feature was her pink hair, dressed in what looked like horns held up by dark purple bands. A similar band was around her neck, as well as a light purple dot on her neck. Similar colors of purple adorned a piece of cloth worn around the lower neck and hung over her shoulders, ridges on the ends, with an opening in the middle to show the top of her skirt. It was dark purple, the same as her bands, with light purple buttons along the top and sleeves that fully covered her arms. A light purple line separated the bottom of the ridged skirt from the top, while the leggings alternated between cylinders of light purple and dark purple. The high heels were dark on top and light on bottom. Her pink eyes were not unlike those of a cat, with fait splotches of pink under them, contrasting with her pale skin.

In short, it was the HIVE trio… now a quartet.

"Long time no see, Stone." Jinx's usually mischievous demeanor was replaced by a sad countenance.

"It's time to pay your snotmunchers back!" Gizmo whiny voice betrayed his inner anger.

Mammoth gave an almost goofy smile. "We'd like you all to meet out newest member—my big sister, Shimmer."

The girl in question gave a girlish smile.

Beast Boy was flabbergasted. "_Big sister?_"

"By one minute and twenty-two seconds!" Shimmer grinned. "We're twins."

"And this time, pitsniffers, we _know_ she's not a _spy!_ Unlike the two of you traitors." The wunderkind pointed at Cyborg and Bumblebee.

"The two of you betrayed us. Guess we're just unlucky." Jinx again, looking solemn, almost wistful.

Shimmer grinned sheepishly and raised her hands. "I have absolutely no idea what exactly happened," she cocked her eyebrow and leaned forward, "but little bro' here says there were a lot of liars at the HIVE."

Gizmo agreed. "One metallic numbskull, and one annoying fly on the wall."

Bumblebee got out her stingers. "Better watch what you say, shorty."

"_No-one calls me shorty!_" He pushed a button on his controller.

Immediately there rose up from the ground several silver spider robots, emblazoned with Gizmo's logo on top and with weapon launchers atop each leg; as well as several in the center of the contraption.

"Like my new toys? Let's see how you fare against all of us!"

Robin spoke those magic words. "Titans, Go!"

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Cyborg wasted no time in charging in and firing a pair of sonic beams.

BOOM! The beams hit two robots in the center, destroying them instantly.

Cyborg then barely dodged from a pair of pink hexes—thrown by an airborne Jinx.

The two combatants stared each other down for a moment.

ZAP! Bumblebee came in flying from the side, firing her stingers. Jinx gracefully cartwheeled out of the way.

She then spun around, creating a pair of pink hex waves that sliced through the very air. Cyborg hit the deck; Bumblebee shrank down and dodged.

Even in the brawl going on around them, the combatants stopped, silent.

"Why?" Jinx shook her head sadly. "Why did you do it? You pretended to be our friends… and shrugged us off without a thought. You don't know how much you hurt us. Who can we trust now?"

Cyborg was incredulous. "Jinx…"

"No-one." she said, as if in a daze. "Bad luck." She fired a pair of hexes into the floor. Two chunks immediately rocketed toward the two fighters.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

SHING-SHING-SHING!

A barrage of Starbolts wrecked a portion of the clearing the field a bit.

Starfire prepared her eyebeams and—

WHACK! She was hit by a crystalline hammer.

Starfire was knocked to the ground, rolled a bit, quickly got up in a crouching position, and leapt into the air.

Shimmer stood opposite her on a platform of white mist, crystals in hand. She smiled.

"Starfire, right? The alien."

She threw the crystals. Starfire gracefully dodged. "Correct." She fired energy from her eyes.

Shimmer leapt up into the air, created a new platform as the first disappeared, and threw more projectiles. "So what do you think of planet Earth?"

Starfire paused for a moment, eyes fully green; then fired the starbolts in her hands. "It is a very nice place."

Still smiling, Shimmer lifted a hand and created a mid-air shield to block the projectiles. She quickly ran around it—platforms appearing where her feet touched the air and disappearing when she left it—dissipated the wall, and created her crystal hammer.

This time, Starfire dodged the leaping swing and gave Shimmer an alien-powered punch in the back. Shimmer was plowed down to the mall floor; her hammer fell and dissipated.

She got up, shook her head, and leapt up into the air again, making another platform. As she produced her weapons, she spoke:

"So… what kinds of gemstones do you find on your planet?"

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Eheheheheheheheh!" Gizmo cackled as he fired every manner of missile and laser from his backpack.

It was almost like a video game to him. Push this button on the controller to fire this. Push this button to move. Push these buttons in succession to fry the opponent.

"Eat this, snotskin!" Beast Boy turned into a rabbit and hopped out of the way of the multiple explosions.

He then turned into a lion and pounced.

Gizmo pushed a button on his controller. A pair of small Telsa coils emerged from his backpack.

ZZZZZAPPPPPP!

The electric wires only touched Beast Boy, but the amount of electricity was immense.

Thankfully, it wasn't lethal. After the electricity pulsed through his body, he stood in the air for a moment, then crumpled to the ground.

Forcibly reverted to his pseudo-human form, Beast Boy looked up at the sneering face of Gizmo.

"Hey mucusbreath," he stated, with a relatively calm tone, "when your team picked Bolts-for-Brains to spy on us, were you against it?"

Beast Boy stared quizzically. _'What is he talking about?'_

Gizmo laughed insanely. "I KNEW IT! You're so dumb, you forgot about that little traitor girlfriend of yours!"

Beast Boy barked: "That was totally different!"

In Gizmo's most oily voice, he drawled, "Oh, really? Let's see… pretending to be a friend, selling you out to the enemy, SCARRING SOME OF US FOR LIFE!" He calmed down; quite suddenly. "Yes, it was very different. No wonder she betrayed you, Mr. I-Have-Such-A-Bad-Memory! Mr. I-Don't-Mind-Hurting-Other-People-The-Way-I-Was-Hurt! Mr. I-Loved-A-Mental-Case!"

Beast Boy clenched his fists; his teeth clamped against each other. He was so _mad_.

"WAHHHHH!" SLAM! Gizmo was suddenly sent into the ground, metal jet rockets creaking under the strain of the force that was on him.

_The force of gravity._

He walked up from the side, one arm raised at Gizmo, eyes and hands glowing brilliant yellow.

"No-one talks about my sister like that." His voice was as hard as the ground beneath him.

Beast Boy looked at Geo-Force and shook his head in surprise. "Geo-Force...?"

Not taking his eyes of Gizmo, the earth warrior responded, "I was in the area."

A mistake. Mammoth came rushing in like a bull and pushed Geo-Force out of the way. He ran after him.

Gizmo immediately stood up, grumbling, and pushed a button on his chest. Four metal spider legs sprouted from his backpack and lifted him high into the air.

"Scuzzmuffin…" muttered Gizmo.

Beast Boy responded by turning into a T-Rex and roared.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Gah!"

A robot sent Robin flying in front of a broken store display.

He was a bit surprised when a hand was held out over his head.

He grabbed it, sprang up and looked at its owner.

He stared back into an older kid with a brown sweater, green eyes, and brown hair.

Basically, a civilian.

"You okay?"

"Yes… and you shouldn't be here." Robin's tone was firm.

The person chuckled. "Heh. I've been through much worse than this."

CRACK! The wall next to him was suddenly filled up with missed blue crystals.

The boy took a look at the crystals, a look at the battle, and immediately turned pale. "Maybe you're right…" He quickly ran off.

Robin watched the kid run away and then turned to look at three of Gizmo's spider-bots advancing.

Right before they fired, he was suddenly grabbed by his neck and hauled into the store. The lasers passed harmlessly over his head.

"Stay down."

Robin looked at the man next to him.

He was lying down, back facing the small wall. He was obviously an old man; bald on top, and hair graying. He was in a strangely white suit and tie, with a black shirt underneath.

Robin was a bit flabbergasted as the man picked up a piece of debris, sat up and hurled it.

SNZZZKT! BOOM! One robot down.

He immediately went back to his lying position, holding the shoulder he had used for the toss. In an obviously British accent, he grumbled, "I'm getting too old for this."

Robin regained his composure. "You shouldn't be fighting. Do you need help?"

The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling. "Have you ever been in the army, lad? This is nothing."

Robin nodded as the robots fired another round of lasers. He then leapt up and fired a pair of birdarangs.

SNZZZKT! BOOM! Two robots down.

Robin turned to look at his helper before he entered the fray. "Stay here until this blows over, okay?"

"No problem."

Robin then leapt in, staff out.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Standing out over the second floor, watching the battle along with a horde of onlookers, was the man in the green suit.

Of course, he was wearing a red shirt, and black sunglasses. But his suit, his pants, and the wide-brimmed hat that covered his forehead, all were undeniably green.

He watched the battle and shook his head.

_'What a shame. Too weak: all of them. Oh well…there's always the next world…'_

It became utterly pointless to watch this sham battle; he turned away, flapper trailing off behind him; and, unnoticed, went into the restroom.

If anyone had seen him, they would have noticed that he never came out.

* * *

**UNKNOWN**

Hacking into the mall cameras was an easy feat. He was watching the battle.

_'The young fool. He'd better not get too attached to his experiments.'_

Admittedly, some of those students would be hard to replace… but they would be replaced. He had many years ahead of him, after all.

He sensed the movement behind him. Quickly swiveling his chair around, he looked at the calm figure.

"Deathstroke the Terminator. What a pleasant surprise."

Slade's eye closed for a moment. "It's been a long time since I used that name."

Brother Blood chuckled. "What can I say? Here, we do our research. What brings you to the HIVE, Slade?"

Slade looked up at the computer screen. The students versus the Titans; all of them getting coverage. He turned his head down to Blood. "What are you planning?"

"Pardon?"

"I do my research too, Brother Sebastian the Seventh." Blood's face filled with surprise; Slade used his real name. "You are planning something. Something large. Something big enough to make you take control of this organization. What is it?"

Blood's face turned into a smile. "Something big? If you call training supervillains big, then yes, I am."

Slade responded quietly, "You plan on destroying the world."

"I… I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Don't play games with me."

Brother Blood scowled, made eye contact, and reached out for Slade's mind, his eyes glowing red.

But he hit a brick wall. Every time he tried to get in there, to change something, even to see anything, his mental claws scraped against an impenetrable barrier.

"My apologies. Your powers won't work on me. Neither will your _friend's_."

Blood grumbled as he returned to the physical world, eyes turning blue again. "Is that what it's all about? I assure you, _Mister Wilson, that_ I didn't send him."

Slade showed no surprise at that comment. He merely turned away. "If that is how you will be, so be it. But be assured, I personally want to remain alive. And I'll do whatever it takes."

Eyes glowing red, Blood roared and sent a wave of red fire at Slade.

Nimbly dodging, he ran out of sight.

The evil priest stormed out of the room and looked left and right for Slade, a fire ball in his hands, and then returned the way he came. It would be foolish to chase Slade.

Besides—even if he knew, he couldn't stop it.

* * *

**Jump City Mall**

The battle lines changed. Suddenly Raven found herself fighting Jinx.

"Well, well, well…" droned the pink haired sorceress. "We fight again. What a coincidence."

Raven could sense her despair a mile away, even as she dodged a razor sharp hex.

Of course, she didn't _need _to sense it. Jinx had lost an aura; a sparkle; a cat's grin. It was all replaced by a dull, gnawing emptiness. Raven knew that feeling well.

_'It was Cyborg…'_

As if reading her mind, Jinx cried out. "What right did you have to send him? What right did you have in sending a spy, after you had one of your own?"

Raven muttered, more to herself than to Jinx, "The difference is that we do good and you do evil. That is justification enough."

A pair of tears formed in her cat eyes. The pink-haired sorceress shook her head. "That's wrong. That's wrong and you know it. You can't fight fire with fire; it only burns more. And you don't understand what it's like for us… for _me_…"

Raven closed her eyes. "I understand perfectly well. You're a criminal. Like everyone else." When she opened them again, they glowed white; an array of debris flew at her opponent.

Rather than dodge with her acrobatic skill, Jinx threw her own hexes into several floor tiles. They levitated into the air, span around rapidly, and shot forward.

CRASH! The projectiles nullified each other.

Jinx came in through the smoke with a diving kick.

Raven dodged it, and created a shield to block the resulting hex-powered punch.

Even as she twirled around like a killer ballerina, Jinx argued. "Do you know what it's like? To be different? To be alone? To be always running from your past?"

"Only too well," replied Raven, as a pair of claws came after Jinx.

Nimbly dodging them both, she aimed another set of kicks on Raven, all blocked with that black shield. "You know nothing!"

A hint of emotion entered Raven's voice. "I know more than you do. At least I try to do something good."

"What defines good?" Jinx sadly cackled, as she threw another pair of hexes. "It's all how a person makes of it, trust me. There is no such thing as good. No such thing as evil."

Raven, dodging, had a number of ways to respond to that. Oh yes, there was such a thing as evil. _And it had four eyes._

But instead she caught a punch from Jinx, not with her shield, but by accident, with her _arm._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_Insane laughter, cackling over the remnants of a destroyed world._

_A mother's tears at the pain caused by her child._

_People in cloaks, some with fear, most with pity…_

_Headdresses all over, faces full of revulsion._

_Demon._

_Asura._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The vision ended. It was only a split second, but the shock in both girls' faces lasted longer.

_Demon.__ Asura._

They stepped back from each other a few moments, faces both filled with bewilderment.

_Demon.__ Asura. _

Jinx's countenance suddenly shifted to one of rapt attention; head pointed slightly upward. Raven immediately sensed psionic energies.

Telepathy is like picking up radio signals. And this one was masked.

_"all_…._return_…_base_…._"_

Jinx turned to Raven. "We'll finish this later."

A pair of hexes to the ground sent up a makeshift smokescreen.

And when it was gone, Jinx was nowhere to be seen.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"SNOTMUFFINS!"

The sound of laser bullets hit the ground.

"PITMUNCHERS!"

Missiles flung out everywhere.

Beast Boy took flight as hawk. Near him, Cyborg rolled away from Gizmo's barrage. The lines had shifted.

"Gizmo, you're just bugging me." Cyborg's voice was firm.

Gizmo's blared out raw hatred. "Well your making me MAD, you little TRAITOR! I should have killed you when I had the chance. I should have set off BOMBS inside you! Oh yes, that would be nice. Killing you from the inside out, just like YOU TRIED TO DO TO US!"

The problem with ranting and raving is that you fail to notice when green hawks turn into monkeys.

And then land on your backpack.

And then turn into a gorilla.

Of course Gizmo noticed _that. _And he was too late when his backpack was flung off by Beast Boy's massive fist.

"WAHHHHHHHH!"

Utterly separated from his spider legs, Gizmo went down.

Gizmo got up and looked at them, his childish face pure hatred.

"You think it's all fun and games huh? All fun and games. Yeah, that's what you think. Protecting your cruddy city by any means possible. _Well, it's not._"

Beast Boy droned in a Raven-esque way. "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt."

"Yeah, and that's just what you beanheads did!"

Cyborg spoke firmly. "Gizmo, that's what _you _did. What you do."

Gizmo was hit with what looked like a ton of bricks, as he was forced to see and accept Cyborg's logic.

He opened his mouth to say something, stopped for a few moments, then drew back, muttering.

"Rassing frassing gutmunchers…" A smokescreen then came down from a dropped pellet (á la Gizmo). Even Cyborg couldn't see the little guy escape via his sensors.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Bumblebee was basically in the most bizarre battle yet.

The new recruit from HIVE (who was Mammoth's sister—Mammoth's _older _twin sister—she didn't Mammoth even _had _a sister) had the uncanny ability to talk while fighting.

Furthermore, she could give other people that ability.

Which is why Bumblebee, Starfire, and Shimmer were having a conversation; even amidst blue crystals, green bolts, and yellow force beams.

"Y'know, that's just sick, really. Siblings just shouldn't _do _that to each other."

"I have always wondered why Blackfire does these evil things."

"It's times like these I'm glad I'm an only child."

Bumblebee then shrank down to avoid a club from Shimmer, and returned to normal size to continue talking. "But you and Mammoth _had _to have some sibling rivalries."

"He wouldn't pin the blame for something _he _did on me." She threw crystals at Starfire. "Even for a thief, your sister has no honor."

"She was not merely a thief." Starfire fired a barrage of starbolts, coupled with laser eyes. "Once she tried to marry me to this… this…"

"Alien slime monster?"

"Yes… how do you know?"

Bumblebee laughed, even as she fired two bolts of energy. "You're an alien. What else would she marry you too?"

"I do not know… a Gordanian, perhaps?"

Bumblebee and Shimmer only chuckled, but the latter stopped abruptly.

"Oh darn!" she pouted. "Mammoth!" she called.

"I heard, sis!" The rather large man in question was currently engaged in battle against Robin and Geo-Force. Having twisted Robin's Bo-staff into a pretzel, he was currently trying to see through one of the Boy Wonder's smoke pellets.

Geo-Force was doing his best to hold him down, but Mammoth's strength seemed to also include a resistance to gravity.

Pushing together his leg muscles, Mammoth managed to make a jump one wouldn't expect from a person his size. It must be remembered his mass is mostly pure muscle.

Leaping over the smokescreen, he came down in a huge **SMASH **that probably created a tiny earthquake. Certainly, the grounded Titans were knocked off their feet.

"Mammoth!"

"I'm trying to make a getaway, Shimmer!" He rapidly picked up debris and hurled them at the fliers, then immediately turned around and plowed through the nearby wall.

Shimmer quickly followed him through the new back door.

The battle was over.

Not much of a victory…or a loss…

* * *

**HIVE Base.**

Silence…

Silence…

"C'mon! Aren't you gonna talk?"

"…"

"Yeah Gizzy, lighten up."

"What's there to talk about, blockhead?"

It was an exam. A test. Mostly for Shimmer's benefit. They were supposed to be all chatting about their opponents, as though learning to beat them was a tough question they couldn't get.

But that quiz hit too close to home for two of the students.

The four entered the Headmaster's office. Brother Blood swiveled his chair.

"Ah, yes… how did things go with the four of you?"

Jinx responded. "Fine, Headmaster."

Gizmo was silent.

Shimmer made up for that. "It was pretty darn cool. So, how was I? What did I get? C'mon, tell me tell me!"

Brother Blood laughed. "Your sister is very energetic, isn't she, Mammoth?"

The big man gave a smile. "She's been like that for as long as I've known her."

Blood laughed again. "You did an excellent job, Shimmer. In both single and team combat. You get an 'A'."

"Yes!" She and Mammoth gave each other a high five.

Blood then turned to the diminutive genius. "Why so glum, Gizmo?"

"…Nothing."

From the shadows, a new voice spoke out. "I do believe it is very well something, Gizmo. I don't have to read your mind to know that."

Stepping out was the man in the green suit—except, he instead wore a red robe. His sunglasses and hat were gone, revealing his strange black eyes and the even stranger glass dome coming out of his head.

"It was those annoying jerkwad spies, Professor Psimon."

The telekinetic nodded thoughtfully. "Next time, hit them harder."

"I'll try, Professor."

"Erm… Professor, can I ask you a question?" Shimmer's voice popped up.

"Yes?"

"How do you Gizmo and Jinx and Mammy?"

"Shimmer! I asked you not to use that name!"

Psimon chuckled. Brother Blood proceeded to answer.

"In addition to being Vice-Headmaster, Psimon is also the HIVE Academy's head talent scout. He was basically the one who got them into this wonderful institution."

Psimon smiled.

"Professor Psimon…" Jinx's voice spoke up. "It is good to see you again… but where have you been all this time?"

"On another planet." The students looked up at him.

Psimon began to laugh. "Only joking! I just decided to take an extended vacation. No offense, but taking care of all those kids? The strain was threatening to crack my head." He tapped on the glass dome for emphasis.

Jinx smiled. "It's good to see you again, Professor."

"Likewise."

"You had a rough day." Brother Blood looked at each student it turn, looking into their minds, making sure that they were compliant. "Return to your rooms and rest."

"Yes, Headmaster." The four filed out of the room.

_"You did not have to check, Headmaster." _Psimon mentally talked to Blood, even as the kids left. _"There is no chance for a relapse. Not from them."_

Mentally responding. _"You never dealt with Shimmer, old friend."_

_"Her mind is easy to mold. It is just like her brother's. A pity I could not know her more. She would be an intriguing specimen."_

_"Don't forget the big picture here, Psimon. You heard. You saw their minds. They will soon become a possible threat, and we don't want anymore unwanted variables."_

_"We should at least keep them alive while they are still useful."_

_"Just don't get too attached… oh, by the way, we had a visit. The Terminator may have to be taken care of."_

_"He knows?"_

_"Something.__ I could not reach his mind. I don't think you'll be getting any mileage out of his minions."_

_"How immediate is the threat?"_

_"Not immediate, but he will have to monitored, if possible."_

_"Secondary variable."_

_"Indeed."_

Suddenly, out of nowhere, several screens appeared; a mental construct of Psimon's.

All focusing on one Titan in particular.

Psimon spoke out loud. "When will the surprise be open?"

"Soon." And Brother Blood's face twisted in a cruel smile.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Are they always like this after an exam?"

The two siblings were walking to their rooms. Jinx and Gizmo had already silently departed.

"They'll be fine, Shimmer. Next day, Gizmo will probably play another practical joke!"

"Better not be on me."

"I think he learned his lesson the last time." Shimmer laughed. As she quiet down she looked around herself.

_'Never thought I'd be ever get in here…' _Her mind took her back to her exposition battle.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_The Headmaster's Voice boomed out. "I would like to welcome our new student… SHIMMER!"_

_A wave of cheering erupted, and over it Mammoth's shout. "Go big sis!"_

_Jinx and Gizmo immediately turned around, utterly and completely shocked._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_"You never told us you had a sister, Mammoth."_

_The four of them were sitting in the cafeteria._

_Mammoth laughed. "That's 'cause you never asked!"_

_"Very funny," grumbled Gizmo._

_"Seriously, we've sort of been out of touch for awhile."_

_Shimmer smiled. "It was a silly argument. I didn't want to go to school."_

_"Well, Shimmer, I guess I told you so."_

_Shimmer responded by gently rapping on her brother's head. _

_"You knew she was coming, didn't you?" Jinx gave a warm smile._

_"Heh.__ Of course!"_

_"This gives us a little problem." Gizmo spoke like he was analyzing a machine. "Since she is your sister, I suppose we can't give her the initiation… not that she could eat a unicycle."_

_"A what?"_

_Mammoth grinned sheepishly. "Long story."_

_"But," Gizmo continued, "we still can't tell if you're a spy."_

_Jinx's face fell. Even Mammoth had a look of dismay._

_Shimmer looked around. "Did I miss something?"_

_Jinx replied softly. "We've been having some people pose as students."_

_Gizmo's voice was oily. "They want to stop our 'evil ways'. Scuzzmuffins."_

_"We've sort of been suspicious ever since," Mammoth finished._

_"So…" Shimmer chose her words carefully. "What are you going to do?"_

_Immediately, Gizmo pushed a button on his controller, and a bizarre series of wires and cables came out of the chair._

_The entire student body, and a few of the cloaked escorts, came in to watch the proceedings._

_Shimmer had a purely embarrassed look on her face as the pads at the edges of the wires stuck themselves to her face and arms._

_"Jinx?"_

_Jinx walked over, eyes glowing pink, and put her hand on a small flashing gemstone inlaid on one of the wires._

_"Erm… Mammoth?" _

He held his hands up. "Don't blame me."

_Gizmo looked at the machine, stared down at his controller, and spoke as though he was teaching a class. "Okay then Shimmer, it's a simple lie detector test. Lie, and either me or Jinx will know. Got it?"_

_"… Erm… okay."_

_"Okay, first, what is your favorite color?"_

_"Uh… blue."_

_"Is Mammoth really your brother?"_

_"Uhm… yes he is."_

_The big man spoke up. "C'mon, Gizmo!" The diminutive wunderkind ignored him._

_"How long have you been in contact with him since he enrolled?"_

_"We've been talking only for a few weeks. It's been such a long time since we last saw each other." Shimmer then gave a conspiratorial wink; "He spoke very highly of you and Jinx."_

_Gizmo turned to Mammoth. "Did you really?"_

_"Well… yeah. You're my friends, aren't you?"_

_Gizmo gave a grin as Jinx smiled a smile fit for a cat. "Now then… let's proceed to the real questions. Were you sent here by those snot-mouthed, wart-skinned, putrid-smelling 'heroes,' known as the Teen Titans?"_

_"No. Actually, I never even heard of them until recently!"_

_Gizmo looked at Jinx. She nodded._

_"Okay then, did anyone _else _send you?"_

_"Nope.__ I applied all by myself."_

_Silence._

_"Then why did you come here?"_

_"So I can be with my little brother."_

_"Shimmer!"_

_"Jinx?"_

_"All clear."_

_Gizmo sighed and pressed another button on his controller. Immediately the wires retracted._

_Jinx smiled. "Congratulations. Welcome to the HIVE."_

_There was a wave of cheers and claps from the crowd._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Shimmer…?"

She walked forward, lost in her thoughts.

"Shimmer?"

She snapped her out of her reverie. "Yes Mammoth?"

"You okay? You were out of it."

"I was just thinking… how nice it is to be here… to see you again."

"Heh… can't keep the Flinders down."

They paused for a moment and gave each other an embrace.

"It's really good to see you again, Selinda."

"It's good to see you too, Baran."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

He always found his work to get his mind off the problems of day to day life. Of course, he'd been doing a lot of that lately.

Still… why not do something that makes you happy? Especially when it is so simple to do?

He reached for a wrench and found it missing.

"Stupid cruddy wrench," he quietly muttered.

He peered around his room, his desks, and eventually the cabinets.

Some people say there are no coincidences, that there is something that controls the strange events in the world. Gizmo, being the scientific genius that is, disregarded that theory, because in his experience, the coin should come up heads half the time—yet, it sometimes comes up heads all the time. It's all a matter of probability.

Of course, the probability of the location of the wrench was extremely low, at least in Gizmo's mind: because in the drawer where he kept it was only a small green journal.

Staring at it, fearing it, _loathing _it, he picked it up anyway and leafed through the pages, drawn by a grotesque magnetism.

**_"IQ equals 150, and is rising._**

**_"Subject appears to enjoy mechanical and electronic objects. He already seems to have made his own computer. This is probably an environmental factor. More study will be required as to how interests must be directed."_**

**_"Subject remains stunted, despite use of growth hormone and other form of treatment; possible mutation due to prenatal stimulus._****_ Subject will require analysis and possible dissection to determine the cause and a cure for the defect._**"

_Dissection_. The word leered at him like a goblin.

Slamming the book, he put it back in the drawer and took out the wrench, closing it behind him.

He would probably be pulling an all-nighter.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

She looked at the wallpaper of her room and then her room in totality.

Pink, mostly. With posters of various American musical stars, bookcases filled with various spell books, a purple mat used for exercise and a large desk mirror.

Walking up to it, she sat down in the chair and muttered an incantation, her eyes glowing.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a box warped into existence. It was, of course, magical.

Opening it up, she looked at two things; a large red ruby and a scrap of white cloth.

Her face quickly turned sad as she looked at the items. Two items that marked her past.

_'A past I've so desperately tried to forget.'_

But she didn't really. No matter what she did, the box never left the back of her mind.

The box and what it meant.

_'It's not like any of them cared. Back home.'_

She closed it and, with another incantation, the box faded into nothingness.

She looked at the gymnastic mat lying on the floor in an empty space. Briefly, memories surfaced of poses, meant to strengthen and purify the body…

_'Don't you think about that, Jinx. That part of your life is over.'_

She shook her head, as though to clear thoughts from it. Then she proceeded to get ready for bed.

She hoped her dreams would be in the present…

* * *

_

* * *

Somewhere out there, a restless entity murmured in a multitude's voice. "Follow your hearts, children. Find them and follow them." _

_Somewhere else, a cursed girl slept, having been through a strange day, though not as strange as others. _

_A pity for the girl, as in her room, an item began to glow a deadly red…__

* * *

_

(Fade to black…)

**Postscript:** And we are done!

As previously stated, I had some trouble writing this chapter. Don't ask me why, maybe it was writer's block.

I'm actually kind of disappointed, actually. Looking back, I wondered why I put these people in, but by then I just wanted to get this thing done. Hopefully it's not too shoddy.

Don't worry folks, next chapter will get in the swing of things. I'm looking forward to it, as I've said previously. I'll give you a hint; that chapter came in mid when I tried to determine the name of this fic. Not that it'll have the same name.

Ahem… Shimmer is yet ANOTHER character from the comics, and yes, she was Mammoth's sister. I think I've changed her powers a bit, but I've definitely changed her personality-in this story she's supposed to be a bit of a contrast to Starfire, for reasons you will understand later. Her appearance is based on her current comic appearance, but it's less… revealing. The hammer came a bit from Sonic character Amy Rose.

I've also decided to delve in the backstories of the HIVE kids. They will eventually be covered in more detail.

Special thanks to my beta-reader Blackshield, who has only gotten better as an author.

And now, as we wait for the episodes of the show known as "TROQ" and "Prophecy" I engage in randomness and leave you with a pair of meaningless quotes:

"Space is a Waste of a comprehensive commentary"  
-Post, author of "These Black Eyes"

"Oh, really?"  
Derrick Wyatt, character designer for Teen Titans.


	5. Falls the Shadow

**Disclaimer: Only own the interpretations of at least two characters, maybe three. And it's spelled Kardiak. Not Cardiac, Kardiak. Don't ask me why.**

(Begin fic)

* * *

_Between the conception  
And the creation  
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow  
_T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

* * *

**UNKNOWN**

Raven was dreaming.

She was dreaming a nightmare.

There stood before her, in cloaks of black and red, Despair and Rage.

The two emotions of her demon half.

The emotions she feared the most.

Knowing this was more than a dream, Raven spoke. "What do you want?"

"_We are giving you one last chance to embrace your demon side._"

Raven glared. "You know my answer already."

Rage then spoke, her voice almost a scream.

"**WE know, but HE won't accept no for an answer, Raven.**"

Raven took a step backward. She knew who Rage was talking about.

"What does _he _have to do with this?"

Rage burst out into insane laughter while Despair stated coldly "_If we told you, it would spoil the surprise._"

Raven gave another look of annoyance. Speaking firmly: "What are you hiding? Tell me."

Rage stopped laughing abruptly. "**Let us have him, Raven. Let us have vengeance for all he has done. Let us teach him the meaning of pain.**"

"_You will never have to worry about him again…you will never have to worry about anything again._"

"I should have guessed. You tell me nothing."

Despair had no change in expression. Rage laughed insanely.

"**I told you, Despair, there is no changing her. She will have to find out the hard way**."

"_A pity._" Despair whispered, as she waved a hand.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Raven awoke.

'Was I dreaming?'

She wasn't sure if she dreamt…and if she did, she could barely remember the dream.

Raven sighed, looked at the clock, and began her morning meditation.

If it was something important, it would come to her then. If it wasn't important…then…no matter.

* * *

**Later…**

What looked like a giant human heart was waiting in the park.

Of course giant human hearts normally don't have metallic tentacles that can vacuum up organic matter.

Kardiak, the heart monster, stood in the empty park. The Titans were facing him.

"_Hello Titans."_

The voice was like a heartbeat, but the words could be easily made out.

Beast Boy summed up the Titans' thoughts. "Does EVERY monster have a voice now?"

"_I think…" _murmured the giant heart, _"that your little friend gave me that."_

Raven was shocked for a moment, but wasn't really surprised. She had a while ago guessed the spell she used changed the creature in certain ways.

"Doesn't matter," murmured Robin. "It's still going down. Titans, GO!"

Of course, he was already out, throwing his birdarangs at the creature as he strafed around it.

The creature responded by simply picking up a tentacle, and with the rush of moving air, blew them off course in a gust of artificial wind.

The heart then gave an impressive leap in the air; landing on the back of a T-Rex shaped Beast Boy. It then swung a tentacle sideways at Cyborg.

RRROWWWWWRRR! SLICE!

The tentacle was cut in half by a swipe from Cyborg's hand, which had become a fast moving chainsaw.

If Kardiak had eyes, it would be looking rather surprised.

"Booyah!"

"_Hmph. There can only be one cybernetic-organic."_

A sudden burst of wind from another tentacle sent Cyborg flying. Robin barely leaped over his friend. He readied explosive disks.

WHUMP. A tentacle got him by the feet and sent him to the ground.

The heart let go of Robin as it suddenly leapt into the air to avoid a flurry of Starbolts.

A midair barrage of tentacles eventually caught Starfire and got her grounded.

The heart promptly landed even as Raven levitated the trees with her black energies.

Kardiak quickly stuck out a tentacle…and this time began to suck inward.

Raven was caught. She immediately sacrificed her concentration on the objects to project her soul self.

_And she couldn't._

Her eyes widened in shock and surprise. Miraculously, nothing blew up.

Of course, losing her concentration meant she was sucked into Kardiak.

It was looking at the world through red cellophane. Of course, red was definitely _not _Raven's favorite color.

An attempt to break free of the monster was cut off by smaller metal tentacles wrapping around her arms and legs. Raven groaned in pain as a small electric current was activated, disrupting her focus.

"_I usually prefer to dine on the emotions of children…absorbing emotions, you see, is my form of sustenance." _Kardiak spoke like an experienced connoisseur, going into details about his favorite food. _"The fear they have is so much more delicious than the feelings of adults. I suppose it has to do with the wide imaginations of children, of the fact that they believe their nightmares are real. Adults, though, are more prone to insanity, especially when they feel as though they are about to be digested."_

Raven would glare at Kardiak's face if it had eyes anywhere. The heart continued. _"But adolescence, that time when a human is neither adult nor child… they have varied tastes in their fear…but they also had in them an emotion which I was fascinated by. A dish that looked like it could put the fear of children to shame! And though I would have loved to see how it would taste, I was reluctant to do so…until now…"_

Raven was calm. Yes she was calm. She had to be calm, even amongst the disruptions of her focus, even as she knew that anything and everything could happen.

"_I see so much pain in you, human. Let me have it!"_

And then it intensified the electric shock.

And there was pain, pure pain, exploding and pure pain, consuming her and going up her, even as she sensed her friends fighting frantically to get her out, but Kardiak kept dodging leaping hitting, and she could hear its voice—"_Ohh…delicious!"—_and she tried not to scream not to scream

_(don't go easy on it don't go easy you don't have to worry about hurting me just free me before I scream oh Azar please)_

Too late.

She screamed in pain.

And then the scream turned to laughter.

Insane, inhuman laughter.

Four eyes open, Raven, smiling like a sadist, poured her own dark energies into the heart.

Or should I say, her own _demonic _energies.

"_AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"_

The heart screamed in its heartbeat way as every nerve sensor, organic or cybernetic, gave off messages of intense, infinite pain.

The 'heart attack' soon ended when Raven flew out from the heart in a burst of black, tearing a large hole into it.

The heart fell. But Raven wasn't looking at it.

She was looking at her friends.

Her shocked, surprised, and not a bit frightened friends.

And then she grabbed herself, seemed to struggle with herself, as she fell to the ground, and when her eyes opened, there were only two again.

The Titans were quickly at her side.

"Raven!" They all said that word, almost at once.

"I'm fine…I just lost control for a second…that's all…"

A sound caused her to turn around. Kardiak attempted to get up, but quickly overbalanced and fell.

"_Need…aspirin."

* * *

_

**Titans Tower, 11:50.**

_The figure came._

_It leapt and slid, with an almost supernatural grace._

_It was silent, utterly silent, in speech and in motion. It was as if there was silence around it._

_It leaped over a trip wire, went under a hidden camera, and pushed a hand against the base of the tower._

_It then recoiled, as though it had just touched a disgusting, filthy object. It looked up at the Tower skyscraper._

_Security was disabled. The Titans would be alone this night._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

**Raven's Room.**

Raven was meditating.

It was midnight and she couldn't sleep.

Something was nagging at her…something she just couldn't grasp on.

It wasn't the events of the day. Yes, she had been losing control a bit too much, but she had lost it before and she got it back.

Raven was a bit unnerved that Rage didn't whisper into her mind, but eventually paid it no mind. If she couldn't hear the voice of her anger…well, that was a good thing, right?

Still, it nagged her.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

And then came the red light.

From the very chest in her room.

Raven's concentration was broken. She could barely hold her fear as it opened up and a vertical book flew out, with red coming from the pages.

_The book._

It opened, and the blinding red light poured out…but Raven could see…all too well.

The characters were normal at first, but then the pages began to turn rapidly, as though a heavy wind was blowing…

And then pages became nothing more than lines of a single mark.

And when Raven saw that mark, she had to control not fear, but abject terror. The blood in her veins ran cold, her powers threatened to go awry.

And the pages kept turning, turning, turning…until…

The book opened to blackness. Pure blackness…

_And it was beginning to slide off the page._

It eventually gained cohesion and began to form.

Red…with black markings. Long white hair. Pointed ears. Gray gauntlets. Black talons. A white cape. In one hand, a white scepter, the top glowing with faint red energy. A gray loincloth. Sharp, crocodilian teeth.

And then the mark, the mark the paralyzed her with fear…the mark of the eyes.

_The four yellow glowing eyes._

The inhuman creature spoke with a bizarrely human voice.

"Hello, daughter."

Raven hissed out the word, like it was poison.

"Trigon."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Robin jolted up with a start.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

He looked around the corners of his room. Everything in order, everything perfectly white.

With an adept leap he leaped over the wall separating the two halves of his room, the walls changing from white to a particularly dark gray-mostly from newspaper clippings posted on the walls.

Robin's gut told him there was someone there…and his gut was rarely wrong.

"I see you still haven't gotten over me."

Robin whirled around. Standing there calmly was Slade.

"Oh…you made some progress," Slade crooned in that sinister voice of his. "But you still can't put the past behind you. Not really."

"How did you get in?" Robin spat the words out.

"Simple. I let him."

The voice came from the shadows behind Slade. It was oddly familiar.

Never taking his eyes of Slade, Robin shouted to the darkness. "Who are you?"

The voice in the shadows chuckled. "Someone you hoped not to see, Robin. Someone you never hoped to see. But you have to see me anyway. After all, you can't ever put the past behind you. Especially when it comes back. Like Slade. Like Red X. Like me."

The figure stepped into the light.

'_No…'_

At once Robin realized why the voice was so familiar…of course it was familiar. He heard it every day. Whenever he spoke.

Standing right there, an impossibility but still _right there_, was himself.

He was in the apprentice uniform, with the same predatory mask. A mocking sneer was on his face.

Robin could only stand still, his jaw slack, as Slade and his apprentice lunged.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_Subject is awakening."_

The words weren't in English. But then again, they weren't even spoken.

Starfire was groggy, but when she came to, she wished she stayed asleep.

'_This is a nightmare. A horrible nightmare.'_

Indeed, it seemed that way, for how could her pink room suddenly turn into a black metallic laboratory?

She looked around, eyes darting wildly at the various computer screens and pulsing energy in the walls. Her eyes glowed as she attempted to move.

Finding herself stuck, she turned to look at her yellow bonds. She attempted to charge up a Starbolt, burning it off with heat.

Instantly, pain shot up her arm, making her cry out, as the energy she stored up was disrupted.

"I'm afraid breaking out is quite impossible, sister _dear._"

Blackfire walked in, calmly, smoothly, with poise, smiling.

"Sister! Thank X'hal! You must help me get out of here and find my friends!"

Blackfire only laughed: a cold, cruel, insane laugh.

"This is no time to be laughing! Please, sister, set me free!"

"Why should I set you free," chuckled Blackfire, "when I was the one who captured you in the first place?"

Starfire could only open her mouth in shock.

"Oh yes," Blackfire continued. "The Psions need to finish their experiments on you."

Starfire was utterly and completely stunned. "Sister…Komand'r…why?"

"Why, Koriand'r? Why? You know why!" Her eyes turned purple as her mouth twisted with rage. "You know darn well why! This has always been my life, sister, chained to a wall, never able to break free. And you were always there before me, taunting me, jeering at me!"

"Komand'r, I would never…"

"You took _everything_ away from me Koriand'r. EVERYTHING!" Her anger changed into a sadistic grin. "You took everything from me, and your pain will pay me back. BEGIN THE EXPERIMENT!"

"_Experiment One has been initiated."_

Starfire's world exploded in pain. But even in it all, she could still hear her sister's voice.

"Feel free to scream all you like."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Cyborg was in the training room.

He didn't know why. It was just a hunch he had.

It wasn't even that. It was more like some subliminal signal telling him to go there.

He turned on his shoulder mounted flashlight and searched the room.

Weights, projectile launchers, treadmills, everything seemed normal.

Cyborg turned to leave the room.

"My, my, Victor. You've forgotten most of your lessons."

He swirled around to look at the smiling figure of Brother Blood, in his red battle suit with robotic arms.

"I must say actually," Blood continued, "that it's quite an irony. Victor Frankenstein, as you may remember, created an inhuman creature…and what do we have here?"

Cyborg growled.

Blood was undaunted. "Of course, it is a common mistake to call the Monster 'Frankenstein,' and certainly it would be a mistake to call you Victor. Your proper name is 'Silas's Robot.'"

Cyborg leapt with a charge…and was knocked to the ground from the side.

He was suddenly swiveled around; hands pinned behind his back, and forced to look at the evil priest.

"You know, Vic, you have so much hate for the man who saved your life. What would your mother think?"

"My mother's **dead**,jerk!"

"Don't talk to me like that, Victor."

His respiratory systems froze for a few moments at the voice.

He immediately broke free of the hold and turned around, knowing and yet refusing to believe what he would see.

It was his mother, of course, Elinore Stone.

Except she, too, was half robot.

Silver metal and red circuits replaced her face and arms. Her hair was all metallic. Her metallic eye glowed next to her normal one.

"_No…_"

"You are a horrible son, Victor. Give up now. Listen to your mother."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Soy milk.

That's all he wanted. Soy milk.

He flicked the switch but no light came on.

He flicked it a few more times, angrily, but to no avail.

"Come on, come on! Work!"

"_Beast…Boy…"_

The voice came from the couch.

"Hello?"

"_Beast Boy…you're here…"_

"Who is this?"

He peeked over the couch, and gasped for air.

It was obviously a girl with long hair, in some kind of armor.

More importantly, it seemed that two things were stuck to her head, looking in the shadows like horns.

Beast Boy's voice was a whisper. "Terra?"

WHUMP! A barrage of pebbles slammed into him, knocking him to the floor.

"I'm sorry, Beast Boy. Did that hurt?"

He looked up at her, the girl he loved, and still did, smiling cruelly in her apprentice outfit: standing on a pair of rocks, hair covering one eye. In the shadows, she stood out in color.

'_This is a nightmare.'_

Terra cackled madly, insanely. "You wish this was a nightmare, Garfield, but my big friend will give you a nice wake up call."

"**GRAHHH!"**

WHUMP!

A huge figure slammed into him, picked him up, and slammed him into the ground again.

He struggled to get up, and turned to the immense monster standing before.

He never seen it before…but he knew what it was.

"This can't be happening…" His mind began to crack. "_This_ _can't be happening!_"

The green Beast Within gave a cruel crooked smile, and pounced.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Trigon. Four glowing demon eyes looked down upon his daughter.

He was not as huge as the mental image Raven saw in her head, although certainly, he almost reached the ceiling of the room.

Raven fought a losing battle over her emotions as the demon spoke.

"My dear Raven, are we _still _on a first name basis? Come now, you _had _to have missed me, it's only been a couple of years." Trigon smirked, his teeth flashing.

Raven's face was a battle between stoicism, fear, and pure hatred.

Her mind was even more tormented. Rage and Despair spoke as one: _"**Kill him. Finish him now. Destroy him. End it all.**"_

Trigon could easily see the pain his daughter was having. "Here…" he spoke maliciously. "I got you a present."

With his free hand, Trigon reached into the book, which immediately burst into flame. The book burned into ashes as Trigon held out his gruesome trophy.

_The severed head of a purple dragon._

"Do you like it?"

Raven was only horrified as Malchior's head spoke, in pain. "Help…me…"

"What did you do to him?" Raven said, barely keeping her mind from spinning out of control. Some part of her wanted this to be a nightmare…but she knew it was all too real.

Trigon responded matter-of-factly. "He broke your heart, my little Raven, so I decided to break him." He then turned to the head. "Tell her you're sorry. _Now._" And his hand glowed with orange energy as the dragon screamed in agony.

"I'm sorry…!"

"Say you should never have broken her heart!"

"I…should never…have broken…your heart…ohpleasekillmenow—the pain!"

"Kill you? Yes…but not without punishment. After all, you did not just lie to my daughter; you hurt her in one of the worst ways imaginable."

Her anger flared. "Like you did to Mother?"

Trigon's eyes immediately locked on her. His face became solemn. "Now, Raven…can't we let bygones be bygones? It's all in the past now, isn't it?"

Raven gritted her teeth. "All in the past? How can I say that when you killed my mother, Azar, _everyone? _When I still have nightmares of the end of Azarath?"

Trigon gave a sigh. "Perhaps I haven't been the best father to you, Raven…but that's not the question." He held out the head again. "The question is, don't you want to finish him off?" Trigon once more gave his crocodile grin.

Raven just looked at the head with startling revulsion and…

_(not gratitude not gratitude I never wanted this to happen I never)_

"_**Oh, really?**"_

Trigon took his daughter's silence as a 'no'. "Well if you won't do it…" His face became grave again, "farewell, Malchior."

And Trigon smiled malevolently as his hand glowed with a geyser of energy, and the dragon's head screamed and screamed and my how did he scream as in those few seconds he experienced an eternity of pain and then the head broke into pieces that broke into nothing.

Nothing more.

He chuckled a bit at his handiwork, and then looked up to quickly see Raven attempting to flee the room.

With a wave of his hand, lines of red energy appeared from nowhere and wrapped around her body like a rope. She struggled against them, an act both determined and futile.

"Sit down, Raven."

She was forced to. A chair glowed as it was placed under her. Trigon himself sat down upon her bed. There was a creak in the springs, and nothing more, despite his larger than average size.

"Get out of my room." It sounded silly when she said it. Get out of my room. Why not 'Get out of my life,' or 'Leave me alone'?

And she couldn't hide the fear in her voice. The fear she was so desperately trying to control.

Trigon laughed. "I must say, daughter, that you have done…_poorly._" His grin turned into a look of disapproval. "You save the very things you were created to destroy. You go against your very nature, your very _being_, in trying to be a hero. Do you not realize that you are committing the ultimate sin, by defying the reason for your creation?"

"I never wanted to be created," Raven spat.

Trigon shook his head wearily. "You truly worry me, Raven. All this sadness and despair… something to savor in mortals, but not in your own family. Every day I wonder as to whether you have taken your own life voluntarily. It is a fate almost incomprehensible to me…and yet I don't need to read your mind to know that you _think about it!_" Trigon looked to the ceiling, and then looked to the ground.

"Like I said, daughter, sometimes I worry about you. Sometimes I worry about you _a lot._ I suppose, though, that most of it comes from you hanging with the _wrong crowd._"

Those two words…

(_No…)_

…sent a chill down Raven's spine.

Grinning like a shark, Trigon raised his hands. Four orbs appeared between him and Raven, all in a row so that she could see each one.

And what she saw was her friends.

Fighting—and _losing_—to their own nightmares.

She screamed, "Leave them alone!", as if those words would make her demon father stop.

"No, Raven," Trigon said, in an almost whispering voice; "I will not. Your friends are preventing you from realizing your full potential. But if you let go of the pathetic _human _resistance to what you are…"

"NO!"

"…then I suppose you will have to watch as their own nightmares claim them."

She couldn't close her eyes, couldn't cover her ears…as the Titans suffered, as they drowned in pain…her emotions…

"**_Kill him, kill him, make him pay, kill him, slay him, slay them all. Make them bleed."_**

…were totally out of control.

She watched…she watched all the horrible things…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"**RAHHHH!"**

SLAM. Beast Boy was bowled over.

"Give up, Beast Boy…you know, you should have died a long time ago…with your parents…"

Giving a roar, lion Beast Boy pounced, and the Man-Beast swung him away like a rag doll.

_It was the African jungle…the African jungle._

_And the raft fell._

_And they all plunged. Except for a bird._

Terra laughed insanely. "You know, Beast Boy, you really are a failure. You couldn't save me, couldn't save your friends, couldn't save anyone. And now you can't even save **_yourself._**"

And for a split second, she had four red eyes…

Not that Beast Boy could see. It was hard to, when your green dark side was pounding you into the ground.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Pain.

Sheer pain.

Pain and her sister's voice.

"You stole everything from me, even before you were born! My appearance, my powers, my _birthright!_"

"Sister…" Starfire choked, "they were all returned to you…all of them…maybe you look different, but…"

"INCREASE THE CURRENT!"

"_Increasing…"_

Starfire gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. But she still had to close her eyes as the red pain washed over her.

_They poked her, prodded her, treated her like what humans would call a "lab rat". She wasn't a person, only an experiment. And that experiment wasn't even given life, only pain._

So of course she didn't see the four eyes looking in everywhere on the room…and on Blackfire's face.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"You are pathetic," sneered Slade.

They moved around Robin with superhuman speed. No matter where he hit, he always missed. Not matter how he blocked, they always got passed his guard.

Not like he was concentrating. He was trying to wrap his mind around the impossibility of _himself_ being in two places at once.

"Bruce would be so disappointed." The apprentice's smile never changed. "Turning into a criminal, betraying your friends, working for your enemy…of course, he was disappointed in you already. That's why you left him, isn't it?"

The real Robin lunged with a punch, but his hand was grabbed behind him by Slade.

"Why did you create this little team, Robin?" Slade swung his face against the wall. "Did you want to impress the Batman? Step out of his shadow? Or did you just want a boost to your fragile ego? You're flawed, Robin...interesting, perhaps, but flawed, like everyone else. And because you're flawed, _you are weak_."

_And there he is again, facing his nightmares as he fights his friends. He fights them in order to save them, for if he doesn't, they die. It is always amazing how history repeats itself…as it is repeating itself even now._

There was a small change of tone in his voice…as if almost another person was speaking with him…

A _whispering _person.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"You are a bad boy, Victor."

He was tossed across the training room like a ragamuffin.

"Shut down. End your life. Accept your fate."

Cyborg looked up at the roboticized

(_how is she still alive she was dead man she was _dead!)

being that was his mother.

"Listen to your mother, Cyborg." Blood stepped in behind her. "You should have died in the laboratory with her. An ungrateful boy like you doesn't deserve his life! Rejecting his own father! How utterly foolish."

_He wakes up, and all is different. He knows this immediately, knows before he even went under, that life would never be the same again…and there is the Dr. Frankenstein of his creation—his father, his very _biological _father, always treating him as machine to be tested. And time, he really was a machine._

"I always talked to him, Victor!" The Elinore-robot screamed. "I always tried to get him to listen, to get him to care about you as a person! But Silas wasn't the problem, _you were_! You ungrateful, selfish child! Go and die. Go out and _die!_"

"Mom…"

"I am not the mother to a creature such as you!"

Brother Blood laughed.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_And for her, and for the watcher, it is the worst of all, because she has always been watching when these things happen, always has been, and everyone around her ceases to exist…_

"What's the matter, daughter? Not enjoying the show?"

Raven thought she would explode; the thought that exploding was exactly what Trigon wanted her to do was failing to have power to stop her. She would explode in emotion and then…

And then…

_And then…the spheres winked out._

_Just like that._

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Brother Blood stopped laughing. It really isn't a good time to laugh, you see, when a white blade of energy is sticking out of you.

Cyborg caught it all, and with his half-electronic brain had analyzed what happened in the split seconds that followed.

From the point of the blade, 'Brother Blood' turned black. His shape began to fall as he turned into a shapeless, bulbous black shadow. His blue eyes disappeared and were replaced by four crimson ones.

And the shadow then promptly dissolved into nothingness, leaving the figure standing behind it.

SWISH! It nimbly danced out of the way of the robo-Elinore's attack.

It moved to Cyborg's side, and even with his cybernetic vision, he could only see the brown that seemed to be its entire body.

But even then, its hands glistened with two white blades.

In a voice that was many and one, it spoke. _"It is but an illusion. See it for what it truly is, and you can defeat it."_

Cyborg understood immediately when the thing that looked like his mother turned around. Even as it did, it became the same dark mass he saw before. It glared at them with its four red eyes as it gave an inhuman screech.

"_Grahhhhhhhhhh!"_

Cyborg answered with his sonic cannon and a battle cry of his own. "Booyah."

The creature bent under it. Being a shadow, it was pretty easy to do. It lunged…

And the figure merely raised a hand, and the shadow slammed into a white wall.

"_Now!"_

Cyborg didn't need telling twice. The wall disappeared as the sonic beam struck the shadow in the eyes, passing right through it and leaving a gaping hole. It dissipated soon after.

Cyborg then turned to his _deux ex machina. _"Who are you?"

The figure waved him off. _"No time. The other Titans need rescue."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The voice was a whisper, but Robin heard it well enough.

Finding his strength, he broke out of Slade's grip and knocked him back with a spin kick.

Still in midair, he fired a projectile that looked like a yellow ball spinning on and around a black wire.

It wrapped around the apprentice's shoulders and legs entirely. Losing balance, he fell over.

"You're both illusions," Robin announced. "None of this is real."

He was answered with an inhuman cackle.

"_Not bad, mortal." _The 'apprentice' turned into a four eyed creature of pure shadow, slipping out of the bonds. 'Slade' then began to change into a similar creature.

"_But you still don't have all the answers." _The two shadows lunged.

Robin quickly leapt in the air. In a flash, he had his Bo staff out, and in another, he jammed it into one shadow, right between the eyes. It uttered a shrill scream as it dissipated.

He then swung at the other shadow, which dodged, its formless shape moving out of harms way. Shaping part of its mass, it slapped with several dark tentacles.

Robin ducked one, jumped over a second, and was hit by a third and hit hard against the wall, dropping his staff. The tentacle felt like burning cold.

Clutching his chest with one hand, Robin got up as the creature struck again. This time, Robin got out a birdarang.

SLICE! The red and yellow projectile cut the tentacle off. It disintegrated before it hit the ground.

The creature let off a roar of pain as it held its shadowy stump, eyes partially closed. The scream was cut off abruptly when the returning birdarang protruded in the small space in the middle of the shadows four eyes.

The creature turned into nothingness. The birdarang clattered to the ground.

A feeling crept over Robin…a feeling that there was still danger…but not to himself…

'_Starfire!'_

He bolted out of his room.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Hahahahahahaha!"

Terra laughed insanely, maniacally, as Beast Boy was pounded by his mutant alter ego.

The Man-Beast took a few steps back, baiting him, taunting him, almost.

Beast Boy, in human form, looked up with unbelieving eyes at the monster he was…

At the girl he loved…

A pair of flashes, of blue and white.

"**RAHHHH!"**

Within an instant, Cyborg was next to Beast Boy, sonic cannon at the ready.

"Cyborg…Terra's…"

"It's an illusion BB! It's not really her or you!"

Beast Boy suddenly understood. The monster dodged the sonic cannon blast…but one arm was blown off, leaving a shadowy stump.

The monster's eyes split into four.

And then Beast Boy was a ram, and he ran right into it, _through_ it, past the burning cold, the fiery frost.

And when he turned to normal and turned around, the creature was a black dissolving mass.

"_Grahhhhhhhh!"_

'Terra,' four red eyes now visible, was fighting against…it looked like something of pure brown. She leapt into the air and fired the very rocks under her feet. Beast Boy saw the red energy that surrounded it.

'_It is a fake…her color was always yellow…'_

But the brown's color seemed to be white. Energy daggers of the color appeared in the air in front of the figure and tore the rocks to pieces in a small burst of energy.

The figure leapt forward an impressive distance, a white blade forming in its hands as the sword cut through the four-eyed thing posing as a girl.

"_Begone!"_

There was a line of white where the cut was for a second, her face stunned. Then she turned into black mist, cut in half, and then disappeared into nothingness.

Beast Boy shook his head to clear it as the figure, in its multiple voices, addressed him and Cyborg.

"_Your friends are in danger. All of them. Go find Raven. Quickly!"_

The figure vanished in a flash of white.

Cyborg and Beast Boy ran, not even thinking about the figure, just doing what it said.

They both felt…_knew_ that something _else _was in the Tower this night.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_X'hal, setana stratovmy'r. Setana stratovmy'r, Niah X'hal…"_

"Praying, sister? She is a false god you know. A myth made by others. If there was, she would have saved you al—"

Blackfire's voice was cut off by explosions inside the room; explosions that seemed to scream.

The pain vanished abruptly as Starfire opened her eyes. The room was turning into a dark shade of black. Four eyes everywhere. On the walls. On the floor.

Suddenly, she understood. _'It is not the explosions that are screaming. It is the _room _that is screaming.'_

Feeling the righteous fury she charged her inner energies, ignoring the freezing burn that seemed to suffuse her.

"RRRRRAH!"

A wave of green energy spread outwards, engulfing the whole 'room' in green energy as it screamed.

When it dissipated, she saw her real room, untouched by the energies, as pink as ever.

Two figures were standing almost in profile to her, gazes locked.

'_Robin, I knew you would come! Thank you, X'hal.'_ She turned her green eyes to the other figure.

It looked like her sister. It had the same voice as her sister. It disguised itself, but it was not truly Blackfire. The creature seemed to know this, and revealed its true nature with its inhuman voice and four red eyes.

"_Grahhhhhh!"_

Starfire fired a pair of green lasers from her eyes. They plunged right through the creature's middle, leaving a pair of burn marks on the wall and two neat holes through the thing.

The scream turned from fury to pain as it lost its cohesion and died…

"It is not dead…" Starfire murmured to herself, "…as it was never alive in the first place."

She locked her gaze with Robin. Eyes with green whites locked onto the white and black of his mask.

'_So many secrets, Robin…'_

BOOM! The explosion ended the moment.

"That sounded like it was from Raven's room!"

He sprinted out, Starfire not far behind.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

When the viewing orbs went out, Trigon's smiling face turned into one of shock and confusion, his more than human mind already solving the problem.

Raven reacted immediately. "Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!"

Pure black spread out from her as her bonds were consumed and nullified.

She burst off the chair, aiming for and passing right through the door as her father's roar echoed out behind her.

She barely got out and down a corner as pure red energy slammed right through the door, leaving a large hole in the wall, opening it up to the interior.

In a flash of red, Trigon formed in front of her, blocking her escape route, four eyes looking down.

No words were said as she landed. Trigon's eyes glowed…

And a sonic blast at the chest knocked him back a few steps.

"Rraw! Rrrrrrrr…" His growl of pain turned into anger as he looked at the figures of Cyborg and Beast Boy.

"Have we met before, four eyes?" Cyborg was forceful in his tone.

"I don't know," the demon said in what was almost a whisper, a pair of eyes raised upward. "Have we?"

Trigon gave no time to answer his own question as he slammed his staff downward.

The floor promptly broke under the three as they fell down straight into the main room.

Cyborg fell with a WHUMP, but got up quickly, while Beast Boy countered gravity by turning into a bird.

Raven projected her soul-self, went right through the ground, and came back up, drawing the black bird into herself.

Trigon landed soon afterwards, his size shaking the entire Tower like an earthquake. He turned his eyes to Cyborg and Beast Boy.

"I have no time for you _insects_," he growled.

"Then make some time." Robin then swung down on his grappling hook and unloaded exploding disks on Trigon's face, which turned around to look at the voice.

When the smoke cleared, the four eyes confronted five figures, Starfire floating down from the hole in the ceiling.

He took their images in, imprinting them in his mind. "The Titans, all together. At last, we meet."

Robin stepped forward with one foot, staff out. "Who are you?"

His four eyed gaze turned to the girl in the blue cloak. "Raven, I'm hurt," he said in mock surprise. "Haven't you told them_ anything_ about me?" He grinned.

The Titans eyes quickly shifted to the person in question. But her face was a mask, hidden by her cloak.

The monster chuckled, closing his eyes. "I have been called many things in my life…monster, demigod, _demon_." The eyes opened again as he gave a smirk that would make a normal man run. "But allow me to introduce myself. I am Trigon the Terrible, and I am only here to see my daughter."

The Titans faces were in varying degrees of incomprehension, then shock as they understood. Except for Raven of course.

Beast Boy essentially spelt it out. "You can't be Raven's dad! Her dad is some big, scary, red…" His voice trailed off as he realized just what he was talking to.

Trigon was smiling, teeth bared. "So you have told them something about me! I have to say, Raven, regardless of everything else, you have certainly picked some _intriguing_ companions. A pity, really."

Starfire's eyes glowed green, gaze turned to the demon lord. "Raven, I have encountered something that looked like…my nightmares. But they were only shadows…"

"With four eyes?" murmured Raven in an almost whisper. "I wish you were right, Starfire…but this is real…this is my…" she trailed off.

Trigon laughed. "Father, Raven! Can you not say that word? Father? Perhaps I can force it out…"

He raised his hand, and created a fireball.

"Titans, GO!"

He threw it.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The fire ball exploded even as Robin lifted up with his grappling hook, staff extended, for a blow.

Trigon lifted his white staff up. CLANG! The demon smirked. The top of the staff lit with fire, like an open lantern.

Quickly landing on the floor, Robin gave a fury of swipes. Trigon blocked them with his staff, moving with dexterity contrary to his size.

Trigon then swung his weapon sideways, sending Robin rolling. The Boy Wonder rolled into a crouching position and fired a pair of birdarangs. Another swing, and the demon deflected both projectiles into opposite walls. He then spun his staff with one hand for a few quick spins before planting it right in front of chest, the bottom of the scepter-staff on the ground, hands right on the top of it.

"Don't presume that you can beat me with your armaments, mortal. I've had centuries of practice."

Robin's response was to through a yellow disk that promptly exploded and encased the demon in ice, still in the same position.

Silence.

A four-eyed force beam erupted from the eyes encased in eyes, forcing Robin to cartwheel out of the way. With a roar, Trigon erupted from the ice in a large display of fire.

"Freezing a demon? I thought you were smarter than that." Trigon leaned forward and gave an exhale of frozen wind, blowing Robin to the wall and sticking every part of his body but his head inside a frozen cube. The tips of his fingers and the front of his boots were still unfrozen, not that it was helpful.

Trigon appraised his handiwork. "Keep cool on ice," he said with a smile.

"Huuuuuhhh-YAH!"

Cyborg had no idea how it got from the training room downstairs, and he didn't much care.

He charged at Trigon swinging a one-ton dumbbell.

"HAH!" Trigon swung his staff at the same time, parrying the blow. The resulting sound radiated throughout the Tower.

**BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! **Several slow swings made the weapons collide with each other. The combatants raised their weapons to strike.

There is saying that goes 'Great minds think alike.' Trigon and Cyborg certainly had the same idea when they fired their respective projectiles from the swinging position. The sonic laser met an eruption of fire.

The energies hit each other, but then the fire spread around the beam and onto Cyborg.

"AHHHHHH-OOF!"

As the fire consumed Cyborg, Trigon gave an expert roundhouse kick, sending him and his weapon sprawling.

The metal man quickly got up and raised his fists in a fighting position.

The demon obliged him, letting go off his staff which immediately winked out in a flash of fire. Trigon went into a similar position, the gauntleted hands reflecting what little light there was.

"As you humans would say, bring it on."

Cyborg charged.

"HAAAAAAAH!"

"REEEEEEEEEH!" Trigon answered with a charge and battle cry of his own.

Trigon was a bit bigger than Atlas was, so Cyborg quickly ducked under the silver-gray knuckles. But a punch of his own was dodged by a surprisingly quick back step from the demon lord. Three more punches were dodged, and then the next one was grabbed by the demon's hand. The next punch was also grabbed.

Cyborg was then lifted off the ground as Trigon, with what looked almost like a push instead of a throw, sent him flying through the air and crashing through the hallway wall.

Trigon rolled his neck a bit before turning to a sudden movement. He faced a green T-Rex.

"ROOOOOOAR!" Beast Boy leaned in for a bite, jaws open.

CLAMP! Trigon clamped his hands down on the jaws, shutting the mouth. He then threw it into the ground. CRASH!

Some smoke rose from the floor as the dinosaur's body fell. Trigon backed up a few steps waiting for an attack.

It came. Out of the smoke came a charging green giant bull.

Trigon sidestepped past his charge, grabbed his tail, lifted him into the air, and swung him around like the demon was doing the Olympic hammer throw. Trigon let go and Beast Boy was sent flying out the window.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" SHING SHING SHING. Starfire fired her Starbolts. Trigon turned his head, and in a move that defied all common sense, did a series of one-handed backflips. The bolts only hit the ground.

Trigon's staff materialized in flame the moment he was in a standing position. The Starbolts were then deflected to the sides, ceiling, and ground by his staff.

Starfire then fired her green eyebeams. Trigon countered with his yellow ones. The blasts converged, but the eyes of the demon quickly overpowered the eyes of the alien. Starfire was blasted to the wall, and fell on the ground.

"Azarath Merion Zinthos!"

A cabinet was sent flying at the demon lord. Trigon merely broke it to pieces with a wave of his staff.

Raven then created around her several shadowy daggers; in fact air-pockets encased her powers. She sent them flying.

Trigon raised a hand, and suddenly the daggers' black energy slowly turned to red and stopped abruptly.

A flick of his wrist, and the daggers were sent flying back.

Raven projected her soul-self and dove into the floor. She then rose into the air, a giant shadow raven flying.

And Trigon disappeared in red energy that went directly at the soul-self. It turned and fled, but the energies were too quick.

CRACKLE! Trigon and Raven rematerialized and fell to the ground, the daughter in her father's arms.

Trigon leaned his head closer to her ear and began to slowly whisper.

"You are quite underdeveloped, daughter. You don't seek to conquer, to control. You haven't even destroyed your first planet yet! I can't say I was in your exact position…but I can tell you, Raven, it's like bursting through an eggshell. You break out and see a whole world to do with as you see fit. It is a glorious and beautiful thing, daughter, and it sickens me," his face turned into a sneer, "_sickens me,_ that you find it so repulsive." He looked at her for a moment then broke into a deadly smile. "But I can never be truly mad at you, Raven. I suppose it is my one flaw, that I can't help loving you anyway! Heh heh heh."

He turned her around, his four yellow eyes piercing into her two violet ones.

The violets turned white as she sent a blast of black energy at the demon lord, knocking him away and freeing her from his physical grip.

Trigon shook his head a bit, white hair flying, and then laughed. "So you wish to fight _for real_. Excellent."

Raven raised her hands, and all kinds of debris rammed Trigon, covered with her black energies. Even as his shape was lost in them, she prepared one final spell.

Her raised hands seemed to hold one end of a cutter of black energy. With a yell, she threw it.

Fire exploded in front of the debris, blocking the blade. CRASH! Trigon flew out of the projectile pile, cape flapping, eyes blazing, mouth smiling. He waved his hand.

And because her eyes were on Trigon, she couldn't dodge the wave of fire that came at her.

WOOOSH!

"Ungh!" Raven was sent to the ground, her cloak burnt a bit; singed. Her father descended, eyes looking at her with some sort of pity.

Starfire got up, cleared her head, and went to the frozen Robin.

Eyes and hands glowing green, she melted the ice. She caught him as he fell over.

"Brrrr…thanks, Starfire…."

A green hawk flew into the room and turned back into Beast Boy, in a crouching stance. Cyborg followed him.

All eyes were on the impromptu reunion between Trigon and Raven.

She spat at him.

He didn't even flinch.

"I hate you," she stated. Anger flashed behind Raven's eyes.

"To hate is to be demon, my dear daughter."

Her expression didn't change, but Trigon could easily see beyond his daughter's mask.

His grin was predatory. "I thought perhaps that you would accept your true self in your teenage years, Raven. But it seems that you found something that blocks you from doing that. _Your 'friends._"

A wave of his hand, and all four of them were grabbed by pure red energies, swirling around them like a tentacle. And they pulsed with energies.

Painful energies, which even removed the resistance to screaming.

They all screamed. All four of them. They were practically forced to.

Trigon laughed insanely, maniacally, demonically.

Raven gave a nightmarish howl, eyes turning red and splitting into four.

A sudden growth spurt put her at Trigon size. Tentacles of her own, black ones, wrapped around the demon lord and began to squeeze.

Trigon's expression couldn't be seen, as his very face was being crushed in black.

"**DIE!"**

Sounds of bones breaking were heard as Raven squeezed even tighter.

But Starfire was right.

This was just another shadow.

The four eyes turned red as the pieces of Trigon's body turned into a shapeless black.

This was a shadow.

But a different kind of shadow.

Because this one didn't scream, even as it was being crushed, even as it's life-force was being sucked out of it invisibly.

No. It only spoke a simple parting phrase, in Trigon's voice:

"_That's…my…girl…"_

And then it was gone.

The demoness gave a deafening roar to the ceiling, angry at being denied vengeance.

Her eyes then closed, and she began to shrink down. And when the eyes opened again, there were only two of them.

Raven fell to her knees, violet eyes open in shock, hands grasping her head.

The eyes quickly closed.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_No!"_

"_I have to, Raven."_

"_No! That's why I cried! I never wanted you to die because of me! You shouldn't die because of me! Don't do it, please don't… don't leave me…"_

"_No…I have to do this…for once, I won't listen to other people…I'll only listen to myself…for the first time, I'll do something that I know is right."_

"_Please!"_

_  
"Goodbye, Raven. Live for me. Live for the world."  
_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"MOTHER!"

The memories of the Destruction flooded fast and furious, threatening to consume her with their powerful intensity.

And she was all alone…no-one there…

But then, she felt an embrace.

Four embraces.

The memories subsided. She found herself, tears in her eyes, being embraced by her friends.

And that's all she wanted.

* * *

**The next morning…**

Cyborg woke up. The sun was bright.

He yawned for a bit, shook his head, and looked around him.

He was on the sofa. Along with the others.

'_Wait…the sofa?'_

The sofa was still there, and by the feel of it, it was just fine.

Cyborg then looked around the room.

Fixed. Utterly and completely.

No burn marks. No holes. It, in fact, never looked better.

The Tower was made for being repaired quickly and easily in case of an assault,

_(yeah, another gift, thanks a lot, dad.)_

but repairs such as this magnitude simply couldn't happen overnight. Especially with everyone asleep.

He noticed to his left Starfire leaning on Robin, both eyes closed in slumber. At least it _looked _like Robin was sleeping.

He turned to his right, and found Raven curled up into a ball, head on a pillow.

And Beast Boy…

He was sitting on the sofa's armrest. He was awake.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey yourself," Cyborg replied.

Beast Boy took a look around the room. "It seems…seems like a horrible nightmare. I look around the room and I think that I never fought Terra…never fought that beast. But then, I ask myself why I'm not in my room. And then I look at Raven…"

Cyborg understood. The marks of the battle were still on her…faint, but there.

"What did you think they were?" Beast Boy asked. "What were they?"

"_Shadows of an evil being, which can turn into the nightmares in a person's mind. Others are aspects of him, weaker than he is, but no less fearsome."_

The figure in brown was in front of the window. Just like that.

This time, it could be seen.

Not that there was much to see. The brown cloak covered almost its entire humanoid body, just touching the ground. Over the head was a brown hood. Gray gloves appeared out of the sleeves.

And then the mask.

Pure white. Eye slits showing only black. A line down from the middle of the forehead, down to the chin. The cheeks seemed to be sunk in from the rest of the face, while the mouth was a horizontal slit, bent at the ends.

It turned its head to the changeling_ "Beast Boy. A true pleasure." _It turned its head to the metal man. _"And Cyborg. Bumblebee has spoken highly of you."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_You had a contact. Someone who gave you instructions. In fact, I'm willing to bet that your benefactor tipped off my friends. So who is he?"_

"_You're going to meet… my friend… I can't say much more than that. You'll have to trust me on this. My friend will eventually speak to you; I have no doubt about it… I think it'll become clear, Cyborg… I think everything will become clear eventually."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"You're Bee's friend?"

"_Indeed."_

Beast Boy was confused. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, who are you? _What _are you? How did you get here? Did you fix the room? Why did you help us? And Cyborg, what are you talking about?"

Silence.

The figure gestured to Cyborg. _"Go ahead. My answer will be longer."_

He nodded. "Well, Beast Boy, before I left Titans East Bumblebee told me a bit about the person who tipped you off to the problem I was having…am I correct?"

The figure nodded. _"You are. And in order, Beast Boy, our name is Phantasm. We are…a ghost."_

"A what?"

"_You heard us. We are a collection of spirits. As for your other questions, I have powers, yes I fixed the room, and we helped you because it was immensely necessary that we do so."_

With one gloved hand, the entity called Phantasm pointed to Raven.

"_It is not in our best interests for us, or for anyone, to have Raven fall into the hands of the demon."_

Beast Boy was still skeptical. "Okay then, for all your powers, why didn't you help us when we really needed it?"

"_There is much we wish we could say. Much we wish to tell you. Much we cannot. The demon's four eyes see many things, and we do not want him to see us. Not yet. Nor can we have Raven see us, for the demon always keeps at least one eye right on her."_

"You did help out, though, didn't you?" Cyborg said. "That weight didn't move on its own."

"_No, it didn't. We wish we could have been of more help." _Although its expression did not change, could not change, sadness seemed to radiate from the entity. _"It is a hard thing, watching from the sidelines, wanting to help but having to reign yourselves in, for the greater good."_

The figure then looked around itself. The sadness changed into…a bit of fear. _"His eyes are passing over this place. Please, we must ask the both of you for two things._

"_First, we request that you do not speak of this to anyone. Robin would be suspicious, and telling Starfire…would be like telling Robin."_

Beast Boy was flabbergasted. "Keeping a secret? Dude, I…"

"_You kept Silkie a secret, Beast Boy. We have no doubt you'll keep this too."_

Cyborg still had reservations. "What about Raven's powers?"

"_Raven cannot sense our powers, or anything involving us." _Again, more sadness. _"You will have no trouble keeping myself a secret from her._

"_The second thing we request is fairly simple. Stand by Raven."_

There was a pause to let the request sink in. _"Now, more than ever, she needs friendship. Be her friends. Don't dig too deeply into her, but don't neglect her. Let her know you care. The moment alone is the moment when the demon takes control of her."_

Silence.

"_Please, this we beg of you. Do it for her, for yourselves, for everything you have ever cared about. Please…"_

Cyborg and Beast Boy looked at each other, and then looked back at Phantasm. Cyborg smiled.

"Did you even have to ask?"

"I though you were going to ask me to fight that red guy. Now, don't take me wrong, I want to help Raven, but he'd kick my butt all the way to…well, you know."

Phantasm chuckled at Beast Boy's joke. It was a short chuckle, but one that spoke volumes of wisdom and the beauty of life.

"_We thank you tremendously. And we will be in touch."_

And in a flash of light, Phantasm was gone.

The sun had now risen above the horizon.

"Ngggggg."

The metal man and the shape-shifter looked to the couch to find the three slumbering Titans in the process of waking up.

"Hey, dudes and dudettes!"

"What would you like for breakfast?"

Even Raven smiled.

The sun shined like it was set afire by an angel…

(Fade to black…)

* * *

**Postscript:** WHEEEEEEEEE… 

I do believe I have a deadline on this fanfiction now. Well, almost. I want to be done the moment after "The End, Part III". That's how I am.

Phantasm is ALSO from the comics, but don't look him/her/it/they up if you don't want to be spoiled (although to tell you the truth, it's obvious as to who…or _what _is under the mask). The swords? Inspired by the Unknowns of Square-Enix's Kingdom Hearts. Something about the cloaks…

Trigon is probably even more evil than he was in the comics, and definitely more fatherly. My major inspirations were _IT _by Stephen King, various Teen Titan episodes, the comics, and my own father. No, my dad is actually a very nice (hu)man, but he often makes incredibly bad jokes and goes off into lectures about "opportunities" and other stuff. So…yeah.

Special thanks to TitansGo(dot)net for finding out Kardiak's name spelling, and TitansTower(dot)com for backstory inspirations for the characters.

Malchior's severed head is something I've wanted to write about for a long time.

And for the next chapter…well, the Titans have recovered a bit…but Robin is going to have some trouble for two separate sources. Featuring the completely made-up backstory of a popular character on the show who wasn't in the comics. Can I make it any more obvious?

Once again, I must thank you Blackshield, for without you…well, I wouldn't have a beta-reader.

Please review, as they let me know SOMEONE is reading this.


	6. Vestibule

**Disclaimer:**

**Disclaimer: Hey, I actually own something: That Oriental guy. Other than that, nothing else. Well, maybe the police officer…not really.**

(Begin fic)

* * *

**This is a story.**

**It is a story of many people of many things, connected together by that inescapable force that some call destiny.**

**Let us focus on the story of one boy.**

"_Get back here kid!"_

_A little boy, brown hair, green eyes, ran from the bakery, baguette in hand._

_The proprietor, always hating any shoplifters, ran after him, screaming, "Stop, thief!"_

**He was one of the many who live on the streets… but he had no family, no group of individuals to come to when he needed aid. **

**If he did have a family, all they left was his name… and names can always be changed.**

_With expert precision, Green-eyes leapt atop and trashcan and somersaulted into a broken window in an abandoned building._

_The proprietor, out of breath, could only raise his fist at the window._

**Survival is something almost all being know instinctively. Even then, the boy had a talent for it.**

**It was not merely a talent of skill, however. Fate seemed to take a genuine interest in the boy.**

_He picked the wrong people to steal from. How was he supposed to know they were from the Mafia?_

_The three gunmen glared. _

"_Ya made a big mistake kid. We don like it when people steal from us."_

"_It was already stolen," the boy snapped back._

_One man chuckled. "Oh look boys, a genuine little Robin Hood! Robbing from the rich to give to himself! Hilarious."_

_The other man was still not amused. "I think this kid has a big mouth."_

"_Yeah. Les blow it off."_

_Green-eyes gulped as they aimed their weapons. He closed his eyes._

_WHUMP WHAM CRACK_

_The sounds were not what he expected._

_Opening his eyes, he saw all three men unconscious, various cuts and bruises visible on their face._

_One the other side was his savior, a man in a gray suit and hat. The clothes were in fact striped with horizontal black lines._

_From under the hat, Oriental eyes peered out at the boy. _

_And the man smiled._

**He was rescued by a former mercenary, an assassin who renounced his art. Though he swore not to take another life, there were many who still wanted his. So he was on the run, playing the survival game.**

**And he took the boy in as a student, perhaps recognizing a bit of himself in the child. His teachings had a profound development on the boy's growth, and outlook on life.**

_The man nodded._

_The boy slipped into the bakery._

_Minutes passed._

_No sounds were heard._

_The boy came out with a decorated cookie basket, fresh from the display counter. _

_No-one saw him in the store._

**He learned that material things were in some ways silly, as they can easily be taken away. But he also gave a profound respect on life. Not just his own, but the lives of others.**

_The killer loomed over his next victim. A young girl of ten._

"_It only hurtssss for a moment."_

_He raised his knife, almost covered in dry bloodstains._

_And suddenly, his other arm was grabbed by a pair of hands, and the killer himself was flung to the ground, his knife dropped._

_Green-eyes turned to the girl, and smiled a confident warm smile. She ran away._

_The boy moved to the killer, whose eyes went from anger to fright as he saw his own knife in the boy's hand._

_The boy held it against the man's throat—not cutting it, but near enough to the skin for both of them to know that if the killer made a single motion, he would die._

_They stayed that way for minutes, the boy's hard green eyes never leaving the crazy man's._

_Abruptly, he threw the knife away in another direction and leapt out of site._

_The killer slowly got up, a dazed look in his eyes. He bent over to pick up his knife._

_When he got back up, a pair of policemen had their pistols raised at him._

_From atop a building, the Oriental man looked at his young protégé._

_Green-eyes smiled._

**For a time, he lived life as best he could. And indeed, he was happy.**

**And yet it did not last…**

"_Finally tracked you down, Omo-san."_

_The Oriental man moved the boy behind him, shielding him from the men._

_There were about ten of them, all heavily armed._

"_You should have stayed in the job y'know. No-one's ever really left it without dying."_

"_I found the 'job' was not to my liking." The Asian accent was prevalent in his voice._

"_I don't think that's a valid excuse." The assassins prepared their weapons._

_Green-eyes quickly leapt out, already in fighting stance._

"_Run," said the master._

"_But—sensei…"_

_The gunmen all aimed their weapons towards the boy._

"_Tell you what, pal. Let's make a deal. If you come quietly, we'll let the boy live."_

_The boy's breath caught in his throat._

"_One condition. You must let him run."_

_The boy turned to him in shock. "Sensei!"_

"_Do I need to repeat myself? Go! Run!"_

_He ran._

_He ran and kept running. Even when he heard the shot. Even when everything in his vision turned blurry._

_Tears spilled from his eyes, and for a second, he thought the entire world turned red._

**There is one fundamental similarity between a modern hero and a villain. Both had a momentous change in their life that hurt them horribly.**

**And then they are left with a choice. Either to spread their pain to all things, or to prevent others from suffering the same fate they had. Only the second choice makes a hero.**

**But this boy couldn't choose. Even as he ran away from his master, he ran away from his choice. He took a middle road right in between the lines. The vestibule, where he was neither in one place or the other.**

_He took a look at his findings. Priceless gems. Beautiful diamonds._

_He would only keep enough to go on for the next few days, with some extra in case of an emergency. The rest he threw away, like so much trash._

**He forgot some of his mentor's teachings. Others he remembered. He was no killer, but a common thief. Not a hero, but not a true villain either.**

**But he could not keep running away from his the decision he would soon have to make. **

**And that choice came screaming at him when he pulled off the most daring heist of all…

* * *

**

**Present Day.**

**Jump City Museum.**

"Are the Titans here yet?"

The Jump City police were some of the oddest ones. Their uniforms were futuristic, a result of all the extraordinary criminal activities in the area. Instead of guns, they had stun lasers, a technological marvel that fired blasts of incapacitating electricity.

Though they were the men in white armor with the red visors instead of the men in blue, they were still well respected in the city.

They were currently just outside a police blockade, some of them directing traffic, some of them herding away people. Others were pointing their arms toward the museum entrance.

The interesting thing about the Jump City police was that their uniforms were indistinguishable. With the computer readouts in their visors, they could tell who's who, but no-one else could. It was a safety measure of sorts, especially in the case of the leader. It's amazing how damaged a squad can be when its leader is gone.

Speaking of squads…

Jump City's local superhuman squad, the Teen Titans, entered the scene.

Robin quickly walked over to the men by the blockade. He spoke to one of them.

"What's the problem, Commissioner Slack?"

"Blast it, Robin, how can you always tell?"

Robin only smiled.

The commissioner sighed. "The people thought it was an outage at first. Then they all ran screaming, thinking there was a fire. Then we get reports of men with laser rifles."

"Any casualties?"

"A few wounded, but they'll all be fine. My guess is whoever's in there just wants the people out."

"And what do you need us for? This might not be a metahuman attack."

From underneath his helmet, Commissioner Slack smiled.

"There are a lot of valuables in there. The more people we send in, the more we run the risk of breaking something irreplaceable. You're a smaller group. And probably a tad more effective. Just tell your team to be careful."

Robin nodded.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"Did we really have to stop at Jump City, Brigit? We could have just gone to San Diego."

"Yelling won't get us out of here, Kyle."

A young couple was stumbling through the darkened museum. The man had brown eyes and hair. The woman's hair was more of a reddish brown, and her eyes were green.

"It's your family."

"It'll be yours too!"

"Ahem."

The two of them turned around. Standing before them were the Teen Titans.

"You two okay?" asked Robin.

"Well, we're sort of lost." The woman smiled sheepishly.

"Beast Boy?"

"I'm on it." In a few seconds, he turned into a green horse. Starfire and Cyborg quickly helped the couple get on. Beast Boy took off with a gallop.

"Okay team, we split up. Cyborg, you stay here until Beast Boy gets back so he knows what to do."

"Why me? Why not Raven?"

Robin glared at the metal man. "Do I _really_ need to answer that?"

"Heh… good point."

The girl in question raised an eyebrow, her mouth slightly curved. "That was actually more threatening than what I was going to do."

"We must go," chirped Starfire. "Who knows what the horrible intruder or intruders could be doing to this place containing old artifacts of historical importance!"

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

In the dark, Robin snuck around a statue, vaulted over a glass case, and spotted a shadow with a blue sapphire in his hand.

"Freeze!"

The intruder looked around. Raising one hand in the air, he leaned over and gently put the gem on the ground.

The next instant, Robin was thrown to the ground.

He got up, shook his head, and stared with some amazement at the person before him.

"X! Red X!"

"Glad you remember me, chuckles."

Indeed, there he was; skull mask, black clothes, and the namesake symbol on his costume.

Or Robin's costume, as it once was.

"The belt… how did you…?"

"Made a new one," answered Red X. "I took a good look at it after I found it. New power source too. More stable and longer lasting. No worries about wrecking the city, huh kid?"

"What new power source?" Robin spat.

"I'm not telling you!" He leapt with a backflip and fired a pair of sticky X projectiles at his opponent.

Robin leapt over them, aiming for a kick with his steel toed boot.

Red X warped sideways, away from the attack, and then rolled back and picked up the sapphire.

"Lighten up, kid. I'm just getting this for a friend of mine."

"Yeah," spat Robin, "a friend who would pay for it."

Red X waved his arms. "Seriously! She has this big jewel collection somewhere! It's a _gift._"

"Well then _buy _a gift for your girlfriend then."

"She's not my girlfriend, chuck…"

He was interrupted by the silent sound of movement.

Both figures became perfectly still as they attempted to utilize their spatial senses to know who _else _was there.

Immediately, the lights turned on, as a familiar figure came into view.

"Well… this is somewhat unexpected," murmured Slade.

Both combatants stopped; Red X in a bit of shock, Robin in an attempt to sort out the fact that he was fighting his two most powerful opponents simultaneously.

Slade's one eye turned to the former. "So it's true. There is a new Red X. Even when I saw him, I had my suspicions." The eye turned to Robin. "I suppose you are familiar with the concept of karma? It certainly seems to be present here in this _exquisite _irony."

The karmic irony in question immediately teleported away, and then suddenly warped back in with a flash, sliding across the ground.

The ring of Slade's robots, in the shadows, now came into the light.

X got up, jolted a bit from the attack, as was wont to happen in such circumstances. "Look, can't you just let me go here? If you let me keep the sapphire, I'll go."

"I'm afraid, Mr. Red X, that is completely impossible, and I'm sure Robin would agree." He turned to the boy.

"The way I see it," spat Robin, "you're both going to jail."

"Patience, Robin."

He charged.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Raven was not having a good day.

Granted, she was not having many good days lately, but this still was just bad.

The Slade-bots promptly ambushed her when she was alone, and they did not seem to be stopping, despite black bolts and shadowy darts.

No thrown objects, of course, since this was a museum.

Attempts to communicate with the others via communicator failed. As always, Slade thought of mostly everything.

Cyborg and a green velociraptor came barging in, carefully breaking robots to pieces.

They utterly seemed to ignore them, continuously focusing on Raven.

Definitely not a good day.

'_Where are Robin and Starfire?'_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The former was currently attempting to extract himself from a potentially dangerous situation.

On the one hand (literally!) was Slade. On the other was Red X.

Teleportation, birdrangs, punches, and the occasional robotic computer chip marked the three-way battle.

Red X dodged a birdarang and performed a quick series of blows on Slade.

"Hmm…" Slade murmured. "Have we met? Your style is so familiar…" he pointed a finger at Robin. "That's how I recognized him in your costume."

X chuckled even as he dodged a pair of robots. "I keep telling him he takes life way too seriously."

Robin growled.

He parried a kick from Red X, dodged a robot's punch, landed a kick of his own on Slade's chest…

_And his boot broke right through it. _

Getting back to a standing position, Robin gaped with his mouth at the large crackling hole he just put into a robotic decoy.

The eye narrowed, and then the robot fell.

"Well then…" muttered Red X, "that was…odd."

"No," hissed Robin. "This is a trap."

"Quick as always."

This time the real Slade marched forward, holding an unconscious person slung over his shoulder.

A red-haired, orange-skinned, purple-clothes-wearing person.

"Starfire!"

Even as he ran forward, Slade moved with superhuman speed and got out a device.

FLASH!

"Gahh…" muttered Robin, blinded, "not again."

Red X responded by tripping over the Boy Wonder.

"Oof!"

"Get off!" Robin's vision cleared, and—as expected—Slade and Starfire were gone.

Even before Red X could push his belt, Robin had already grabbed both of his wrists and hoisted him upwards.

"This is your entire fault! If you hadn't bothered to steal a gift for your made-up _girlfriend…_"

"I told you, she's not my girlfriend!" Red X promptly kicked him in the stomach and flipped away.

Robin quickly recovered and lunged.

X vanished. In the next instant Robin's hands were suddenly grabbed and locked behind him by the thief's own.

"Calm down, kid. It's not like anger can get her back."

This time Robin delivered the kick, which—as you can imagine, from a steel-toed boot—hurt pretty hard.

"You just can't care about ANYTHING other than yourself, don't you X? Let me guess, your girlfriend's a fence?"

"She's not my…" X shook his head. "As a matter of fact, I can care about other people!"

"Prove it!"

"Fine! I'll find her before you do!"

And he promptly vanished.

* * *

**Titans Tower**

Cyborg just shook his head

It wasn't a good day for anyone involved.

He looked at brooding, working, Robin at the computer, nervous Beast Boy next to him, and emotionless Raven. And Starfire… wasn't there.

He was mostly concerned about Raven. The metal man had a feeling that Starfire would pull through it all right—for all her innocence, she was a tough girl.

But Raven…

There was a small mark on her cheek. A bruise that didn't seem to heal.

It was a tiny thing, only noticeable by his advanced optics, but for him it seemed to be the thing that summarized what happened before…

Since that bruise, Raven seemed to suffer a relapse in emotion. She retreated into her room longer, and her countenance became more flat and solemn, similar to when they first met.

Of course, who could blame her? But he didn't want anything worse to happen.

And Starfire being captured by Slade of all people was definitely worse.

"He deactivated her communicator, needless to say." Robin's voice broke into his thoughts. Of course Robin would be the one leading the search—the bond he had with Starfire was deep.

He slammed his fists on the keyboard. "Blast it, where did he take her? And WHY?"

A signal promptly appeared on the Jump City computerized map, a yellow dot.

"Check all the frequencies, chuckles."

They turned to find Red X behind them, as if he popped into the room out of nowhere.

He didn't, technically, but it looked like it.

Robin promptly drew his Bo staff. "How did you get in here?"

X chuckled. "Same way as I did last time kid. 'Course, it was easier with the suit."

There was stillness for a moment, as Robin debated whether to fight X there and then.

The thief broke the silence. "It's a trap, y'know. I already checked out the place. Robots everywhere. And they're all waiting for you. Personally, I would recommend the three others as a distraction while you and I sneak in to—"

"What makes you think I'd let you help?"

Robin swore he saw a smile under that mask.

"Well, kid, first, you owe me for saving your life. Second, you need an extra person. I'd imagine you can't go far alone… and if Slade's the genius I've heard he is, he probably _wants _you to do that. You need someone else who can get in undetected. Someone like me." He pointed to himself.

"Like I'd even trust you," Robin spat.

"Well then, chuckles, I guess I get to save the damsel in…"

He was interrupted as Raven—her face betraying zero emotion—flew close to him.

They stared at each other for a few moments.

Then she promptly reached out and grabbed his arm.

X felt a momentary wave of shock, followed the input that her hands were cold. _Very _cold.

She just as quickly let go and turned around. X rubbed the cold spot until she spoke four words—the only words he heard her speak that day.

"She's not his girlfriend."

Red X paused in mid-rub, as Robin blinked.

"… Okay… you can come," stumbled Robin in his words. "Don't expect this to—"

"—change anything?" Red X raised out his hands. "I wouldn't even think about it."

* * *

**He found many things on his path. But there were two that stood out, things that brought him closer to the paths he was running from.**

**The first was the girl. Though he would never admit it, the two were close. She never saw under the physical mask—not a skull in those days, but a regular ski-mask—but she saw under the emotional one.**

**In return, she let the boy see her true emotional face—a lost girl looking for companionship and a sibling, in either order.**

**But in the back of his mind he knew—he _knew _that being with the girl brought him closer to one of the paths—which one, he couldn't say, but he didn't like it, either way.**

**So he tried to get away from her, but even then some part of him still wanted to see her, and so he did keep in touch.**

**Still, he made his path through the grassy vestibule, heedless of any dangers as he cut out his own path through the underbrush.**

**And he came upon a powerful weapon.**

**It was a suit. Created by another boy who took a bird as his symbol—who walked the path of a hero—but that path had many twists and turns, and the path he walked was—at the time—very close to the path of evil. **

**And in a fog, the boy, who took a bird as his symbol, entered a gray area between the paths and created the suit, and left it there.**

**And this boy, who was also in a gray area (though he did not know it; indeed, he thought everything was very colorful), happened across the abandoned device.**

**And the moment he put it on, he started to have trouble staying in the vestibule. And this time he wasn't aware of it, even as he was running headlong towards his fate.**

**His fate being, of course, to choose what it would be.

* * *

**

**Later…**

"Why is it _always _an abandoned warehouse? It's just so cliché."

Now, had this been a better day, someone, most likely Raven, would most likely respond to Beast Boy's futile attempt at enlivening the mood with a sarcastic comment; something like "Cliché? I'm surprised you even know the word."

As you know, this wasn't a good day. The ensuing silence from all parties convinced Beast Boy it was best to stay silent.

It _was _an abandoned warehouse, of course; sitting near a forest, next to some gray boulders.

Beast Boy sniffed the air. A quick look around confirmed his suspicions.

"This is right near the place where Slade made that giant fire monster."

The only response was from Robin, who nodded.

Beast Boy looked up at the nighttime sky.

It was purple, something that seemed to fill him with a melancholy feeling.

'_Purple sky at night…'_

"Stop."

They all did.

Robin stared at Red X, who gave the message. "Where are the guards?" he said simply.

X responded by throwing a small, sharp, red projectile.

The ground seemed to turn into mud and caught it in mid air.

Plasmus formed himself, giving an inhuman squeal, figuring that it was appropriate.

"Titans…"

Robin was cut off by the gray boulders flying at him, knocking him to the ground, and reshaping as strong, silent, Cinderblock.

Cyborg immediately pushed Raven and Beast Boy away from where they were standing as his sensors detected electric impulses in the ground. Overload came up where they were.

"**We expected you."**

Robin quickly got up and threw a smokescreen.

Immediately, he felt Red X grab his arm.

"Time to run, kid."

He hit the belt.

Suddenly, everything seemed to slow down to a crawl. Robin looked up at the sky, and the air itself seemed to solidify.

There was no more time to look as Red X, still holding him, started to run.

For a second, Robin wasn't sure whether he was being led on the ground or in the air.

Red X ran like it was the only thing he ever did in his lifetime. Run.

And then they were in. The outside turned into darkness, and then familiar metal gears.

X touched the belt again. Time turned back.

Robin tried to catch his breath, his legs wanting to collapse. Still, he held his ground.

"You did this before, kid." Red X quipped. "You should know the strain it puts."

"I'm fine," Robin spat in reply. Indeed he was; his strength returning.

"Then let's go. Cutie's waiting."

For a few second, Robin thought of saying something along the lines of, "What about your girlfriend?" then decided against it.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

They hid in the shadows.

In the warehouse, there were stairs down, leading to who-knew-where. They avoided the few guards.

Of course, Robin wasn't fooled. At all. Those guards were only there to make it _look_ like Slade didn't want them there. Typical.

Silence.

They dropped down a door in the floor leading to a large underground cavern.

They crept forward a bit.

And the place lit up with white light.

Above the opening to the next area, a large screen reveled itself, and Slade's image appeared on it.

"I was expecting this," muttered Robin.

"_I had no doubt you were._" Slade's voice reverberated through the room.

"Where's Starfire?" Robin knew there was no point in asking, but he did anyway.

"_It's not her you have to worry about,_" Slade cryptically replied.

Silence.

"So what d'ya think he'll do?" Red X quietly asked, without even turning his head.

The image suddenly affixed the skull mask with his eye. "_I just remembered why your style was so familiar._"

"Yeah?" X crossed his arms. "Were you in disguise when we met? 'Cause I think I would recognize that mask anywhere."

Slade chuckled. "_No, we never met. But I believe we have our…mutual acquaintances?_"

"Like who?

Out of the opening walked a man.

Simple black shoes. Simple gray suit, with simple rimmed hat of the same color, all covered in simple black stripes. Simple Oriental eyes.

And Red X simply looked like he was going to collapse.

Slade's comment was simple. "_I believe this is your teacher._" The screen promptly turned off.

X could only stare at the figure that-against all possibility- stood before him.

The man only stared at them blankly.

"…This is my battle, kid. Save her."

"But…"

"My master, your girlfriend. GO!"

This time, Robin couldn't have made a proper comeback.

He left the room.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Three-on-three.

Shadows flew. Energy arced. Bodies rammed each other.

Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy pushed the monsters ahead of them. They gradually gave up ground.

Not a single one of the three noticed the tiny dots in the ground.

They looked like black spots... they were supposed to.

From his view screen in the base, Slade waited for all of them to step on the booby trap.

Since two of the Titans could fly, Plasmus had to _assist _them. Eventually, Slade saw the Titans get up.

And then he pushed a button on his console.

The Titans bodies' seized up as the electricity pumped through their systems; then fell down.

The current was measured so that it would create unconsciousness, not death. He needed them alive for his… _test._

"Are you sure this is wise, Wilson?" Wintergreen's British voice came from behind him.

After making sure the Titans were being properly moved to the other entrance, he turned to his butler… and friend.

"In what way, Wintergreen?"

It was a habit they had for years, to call each other by their last names.

"I know you have issues with the boy… but isn't this a little too elaborate? Your attempt to kill two birds… no, _three _birds with one stone may result in killing no-one."

"I have not yet decided whether or not to eliminate the girl."

"You know that she is the key to whatever is being planned, even now."

"And I have not decided as to whether the threat is genuine, or delusions of madness by crazed fanatics." There was a firmness to his tone, one that basically said the discussion was over.

Wintergreen pressed on. Indeed, he was perhaps the only person who could do so and not fear retribution. "You can't say you don't believe in these things, Wilson. You've even dabbled in a bit of the occult yourself."

Slade nodded. "Yes, Wintergreen, you are correct. I do believe in such things… but I prefer to hold judgment until all other explanations are proven wrong." He turned to the screen again. "They know who I am, Wintergreen. If I am too _direct_ in my actions, they may be forced to retaliate."

"Better a legion of fanatics than…" Wintergreen trailed off.

"Maybe. But… quite frankly, Wintergreen, I am not being skeptical. I am just hoping it is not true. I think you agree that… what they desire is not something you want to believe is true. Because it would be very disastrous if it was."

"Agreed, Wilson. But what about the thief?"

"An experiment, Wintergreen. An experiment. What _will _the boy's reaction be? Very intriguing…" Red X's battle was still being taped and recorded. He turned to Robin's image, fighting an onslaught of robots, designed only to delay him.

Slade walked away. "I will be with the new captives. I recommend you leave."

"At once."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Red X only watched him go out of a corner of one eye. Everything else was trained on the man who taught him… almost everything.

Images came to him, unbidden…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_Green-eyes ran straight at him, fists flying._

_The master merely grabbed his fist in mid air._

"_Your strength is your speed, my pupil, but you show your intent too easily."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_Omo-sensei…_" he muttered. "What are you doing here?"

The Oriental man smiled.

And within seconds…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

…_he was quickly behind green-eyes, lifting him in the air, the boy's arms grabbed behind him._

"_You need to learn stealth. Not just in your actions, but also in your intent. You must strike when least expected."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Red X quickly pushed away at the hands, leapt off his mentor's body into the air, backflipped, and landed.

"Sensei… why are you doing this?"

The Oriental man kept smiling. He charged again.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

_This time Green-eyes dodged the attack. _

_He then lashed out with one of his own. A few connected. _

_A fist promptly sent the boy on his back._

"_Do not focus on just attacking or dodging. Focus upon both at once, so that you can strike without being struck."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

He leapt up in seconds, and delivered a flying kick.

The Oriental man quickly blocked and delivered a punch of his own.

X landed a few feet away, rolling into an assault position.

"Omo-sensei…" he whispered. "Why?"

The Oriental man's smile turned into a deep frown.

His voice was almost like the air: _"You have failed me as a student."_

Red X took a step back. "…How?"

"_You did not help me in my time of need. You let me die."_

"You told me to run, Omo-sensei."

"_I did not. You ran on your own. You ran like an honorless coward."_

"You told me to run." His voice was more firm.

"_You ran away. And you did not even go back. You acted like a coward, and so you live like one, slinking in the shadows."_ X's fists clenched. _"You would not even avenge my death. I should never have raised you from the muck where you came from. You are even fouler than it is."_

And then X screamed, for the world to hear, his vision all crimson.

"YOU TOLD ME TO RUN!"

In one moment he was gone.

In the next moment, he was in front of the ex-assassin, and in the next, two razor-sharp Xs ran through him.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"_I was a killer once. It is a job filled with disgrace. Life is beautiful, and must be protected. Kill only if it is to survive, or to save another."_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

The red cleared. And Red X just realized what he did.

"Sensei… oh, sensei… what have I done? I've failed you…"

Then he heard the crackling.

He promptly took out his blades. Wires and circuitry.

A robot. Simply a talking robot.

The anger came back in an even greater force.

"RAAHHHH!"

He set the blades spinning and tore through the robot's skin.

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

"So, Robin, you finally show up."

Robin fought his way through the complex. And now, he faced the criminal himself, standing several yards away from him.

"Where's Starfire?" He advanced forward.

"Be careful, Robin." A giant red beam sprang down from the ceiling, blocking his path.

And suddenly, two lights came on, revealing two long black holes in the ground, very far apart from each other.

Above one was an unconscious Starfire.

Above the other were the rest of his friends. Also unconscious.

'_A trap!'_

"Yes, Robin, a trap. Cross that line and both cages fall into a lovely little death pit, that's better imagined than described."

"What do you want?" Robin hissed.

Slade chuckled. "Consider this a quiz, Robin. They are too far apart to save them all. Who do you save? Your three best friends? Or your girlfriend? I am immensely curious in your answer."

'_She's not my girlfriend, Slade.'_

"Take as long as you want, Robin. Although, if you want to save anyone, I recommend not leaving."

Robin looked straight at Slade.

Then he turned to the cages.

'_I can't betray Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy._

'_I can't betray Starfire…_

'_What would you do, Bruce?'_

"Save the girl, kid."

Red X popped out behind him. His voice seemed to have lost its jovial tone.

Slade's eye opened wide as Red X activated the belt.

Time slowed down to a crawl for Red X as he crossed the line. He ran to the three Titans, and, ignoring the strain, cut all three loose and put them on the ground, one at a time.

And time then returned to normal. The rope around Starfire loosened, and she fell.

Robin pulled out his grappling hook and shot to the wall behind Starfire. He grabbed her in mid air.

Slade looked as Robin landed, his eye showing annoyance.

Only his reflexes let him block X's bladed punch, coming from his proverbial blind spot.

"YAHHHHH!"

CLANG! Metal struck metal.

Red X seemed to vanish.

In his slowed time-frame, he struck again.

And Slade blocked. And countered, knocking him back into normal reality and out of the room. Slade was metahuman, after all.

Slade dashed into the dark area and looked around him, getting out his Bo staff.

He blocked the spinning blade with it as Red X appeared out of thin air. Before he could counter, X vanished.

Silence.

X appeared to the right of him. Another block. Another disappearance.

This time, Slade jabbed his staff behind him.

"Oof!" X was sent sprawling. He got up in seconds.

"You one-eyed freak!" He spat.

"My, aren't we angry."

"How did you know him? How did you know _me_?"

Slade chuckled. "I told you, we never met. But I know of Omotegenkan. In the line of work I used to have, it was hard not to."

Slade's eye looked upward a bit, almost reminiscing. "He was one of the greatest assassins I had ever heard of. Once I actually desired to match my wits with him… before he revealed himself to be a fool."

"Omotegenkan was no fool!"

"He gave up his old life. Every assassin knows that to give up the art of killing means death. He was even foolish enough to take someone in as his apprentice. I can only imagine the uselessness of the techniques taught to you."

Red X charged with a cry and leapt with a kick. Slade dodged.

His voice purred from the shadows. "I personally half-thought that robot would remove you from this place by the mere sight of him alone. But you certainly have more backbone than he does. I have heard he could sometimes be very cold. _Did you enjoy fighting him?_"

"I HATED IT!"

He threw red X projectiles everywhere, anywhere, in some hope of quenching that diabolical voice.

WHUMP! Slade slammed down on his head with the staff. X promptly fell to the ground.

His vision blurry, he looked up at Slade, his staff raised.

"You have failed him, you know. If you really were his student, you would kill off his murderers."

"Life is precious."

Slade laughed, his eye never leaving X. "Here's a secret. When I was your age, I thought so too."

In the few moments when the staff went backwards…

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

…_it was a vision._

_He was walking along a grassy field. The grass rose over his head. Even so, he was aware of a pair of paths._

_Paths he dared not go on. _

_He felt safe in the grass. On the paths, you were out in the open._

_But this time, he saw that a section of the grass was cleared for him._

_And when he went to it, he saw that the bushes would soon turn into a path of a rainbow._

_But something was wrong. The colors were too bright. The road seemed to fade in and out. The boy rubbed his green eyes._

_  
The road of madness always looks beautiful when you take the first step. What Green-eyes saw was its true shape, that is only revealed to those too far gone to care…or so far gone that they prefer it better. A living nightmare, which intersected with the wicked path. _

_And Slade was on it, looking down at him with his one eye._

"_Come on, kid, it's where you were headed."_

"_NO!" _

_But he couldn't move backward, he couldn't turn around, the force pushed him onward and onward, even as he clawed and squirmed trying not to take the first, unchangeable step on the mad road._

_And…_

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

Slade stood above him, his staff ready to go right through a soft part of his anatomy.

But there was one more vision.

Her image was in front of his eyes, her mouth in a permanent smile, her eyes glowing like jewels. He spoke her name.

"_Shimmer._"

CLANG!

….

….

….

….

…

Robin kicked Slade out of the way.

Even as he got up, Starfire slammed him to the wall.

A green triceratops broke through it, sending him flying.

Cyborg grabbed him in mid-air and piled drove him into the ground.

He stepped aside to let Raven slam him with a bolt of telekinesis that almost broke through his chest plating.

Through all this, X watched, on the ground.

Slade got up.

Breathing heavily.

The room suddenly turned fully dark for a few moments. And when the lights came on, Slade had vanished.

Only then did Red X let the blackness consume him.

* * *

**Titans Tower**

"The way I see things, everything is going to heck. With all the chaos going on, we need to stick together now more than ever, and I apologize for forgetting that."

"Robin, please! It is not your fault!"

"Starfire, you could have gotten hurt."

"…I have been through much worse, Robin."

They were in the meeting room.

"What about the others, Star?"

"Rob, we're fine!"

"Yeah, dude, don't get yourself tied in a knot."

"You don't understand. You could have all got…"

Raven rose up, like a ghost. Everyone went silent as she glided over to Robin.

She slowly placed a hand on his shoulder.

"This is nothing, Robin. Compared to everything we've been through, this is nothing."

And she silently returned to her seat.

Silence.

Silence.

Starfire broke it. "Where is the Red X?"

Cyborg jerked a finger up. "On the roof. Brooding on something."

Robin nodded. "I'll go talk to him."

As he left the room, Starfire floated in front of him.

"Regardless of his former actions, he did help save me. Do not be too hard on him."

Robin smiled. "I won't, Star."

**T-T-T-T-T-T**

He kneeled, watching the sunrise.

"_Life is beautiful, and must be protected."_

"_You don't even care, don't you?"_

"_When I was your age, I thought so too."_

"Enjoying the view?"

Robin appeared behind him.

"So what are ya going to do, kid? Arrest me?"

"Consider yourself on parole."

X nodded.

He looked out toward the horizon.

"It's beautiful."

"The sunrise?"

"Life. But that works too. It's a lesson I'm remembering."

A pause.

"The robot…"

Red X waved his hand. "A ghost of the past."

Robin didn't press the matter. "I'm sorry for what happened with…"

"Slade? I actually feel sorry for him."

Robin was taken aback. X chuckled.

"Heh, I know, sounds crazy, doesn't it? But I think he was kinda like me once. A human trying to survive in this world. And somewhere down the line, he just stopped caring for anyone else."

And once again, silence.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, kid. I guess I'll lay back, do some soul searching, make a few choices… heh, sounds sappy, doesn't it?"

He hesitated for a moment, and then put out his hand.

"Grant."

Robin looked at the hand. He looked at the skeleton mask.

A great many things went through his mind as he took the hand.

And he spoke one word.

"Dick."

Over the years Robin would wonder why he did exactly that. It was just so unlike him, to give out his first name under any circumstances.

And yet, he never seemed to regret his decision.

* * *

**With a simple exchange of first names, there came a truce of sorts between the lives of Richard Grayson and Grant Wade.**

Green-eyes leapt on the rooftops.

**And now the boy was free to make his decision.**

He entered into the building he called home.

**He could finally see both paths. And he no longer felt like running away.**

He leapt in the window and promptly saw the figure standing to the side of the window.

**He saw both paths. And he knew in his heart what the right choice was.**

"Who are you?"

**So he made it.**

"_Our name is Phantasm."

* * *

_

(Fade to black…)

**Postscript: **WHEEEEE! Another chapter finished. I don't think this is very good, but hey, I'm probably wrong! EDIT: Wait, no, I'm right. Way too fast paced. Oh well.

Red X's backstory is entirely my own invention. Partly inspired by the contrast he has with Robin. (ie: A teacher). His name is a bit of a joke: Back in the comic books, there were four characters all named "Ravager". The first one was Grant Wilson, Slade's son, while the other one was Wade DeFarge, Slade's half-brother. Get it?

Ahem. As for the girlfriend angle, I know some of you are wondering "What the heck is going on?" Well please read "Rooftop Meetings", a one-shot that directly connects to this fic, although it takes place before the events in this story…at least, the events before Chapter 4.

Oh, and the name Omotegenkan comes from the site freedict(dot)com. Apparently, it means "Vestibule" in Japanese, but it's probably wrong. Oh well.

David Slack, in case you don't know, is the head writer of Teen Titans Animated. As for Brigit and Kyle, they are the real names of Potassium and ixnay, both of whom help run the site TitansGo(dot)net. Both of them are used with their own permission. It's kinda like in the show, where some of the artists insert themselves into the background. Of course, that's sort of harder to do in a fanfic…

Special thanks to my beta-reader BlackShield.

Next Chapter is the first of a three parter…and it involves…you got it, TITANS EAST! You can see where I'm going with this. That's right…MORE STUFF FROM THE COMICS! YAY COMICS! EDIT: Actually, it may still be Titans West. I'm not entirely sure.

Now then, you may go and review now while I indulge myself in a little study I've been conducting. Presenting:

A LOOK INTO FANFIC AUTHOR POST!

(Or Dr. Pepper is a drink of the netherworld)

If you've been reading Teen Titans fanfiction for awhile, you probably know of Post, author of "These Black Eyes." Something that's always bugged people (Read: Myself) is that he tries to distance himself from his fanfiction. No author's notes, little random mutterings, he deleted his one-shot commentary for the one-year anniversary of "These Black Eyes", and he always seems to mutter "SPACE IS A WASTE!" (A waste of what, I ask you Post? Time? Money? Life?) For some reason, he thinks that being a high-school/college student who lives with his parents writing fanfiction is grounds for insanity. (Dude, I know an adult housewife and mother who writes Teen Titans fanfiction. Her husband beta-reads.)

So what is the cause of all this? First, let's look at the facts.

His real name is presumably Ryan, and he seems to enjoy having his OC kill him. Repeatedly. He presumably has a cat named Buster, and he presumably is a bit crazy.

Okay, so they're not really facts. But a quick check into his profile reveals he also writes for The Legend of Zelda and X-Men Evolution. The latter two bear analysis.

First, if you look at the fanfic at the VERY bottom of his profile, you'll know his full penname is really "Post Rapture". In this case, I presume that it means either after the end of the world, or after an experience of pure joy. And in the AUTHORS NOTES at the beginning of his fics, we see a writer who is new, a bit concerned about the quality of his work, and no sign of the crazy person we see now.

So what prompted this?

Well, it could be a lot of things. It could have something to do with the date "November Fourth" (His birthday?) But I have a better theory. In the author notes he used to do, he always thanked one thing:

…

…

…

…

**DR. PEPPER!**

Yes, it is my hypothesis that Dr. Pepper is the cause for Post's troubles. This caffeinated beverage is the ultimate drug: It provides inspiration for the small price of LOSING YOUR MIND! And it seems it has finally taken his toll on his poor brain! Except the fanfic writing part of it.

**Recommended Treatment:** A holiday from Dr. Pepper, and spending a large amount of time in the world.

Not the real world, silly! The ONLINE world.

**END!**


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